


Nacht und Nebel

by seapigeon



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Catholic Guilt, Frottage, Hydra Is Working On A Different Kind of Super Soldier, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Intercrural Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Priest Steve Rogers, Relationship Negotiation, Self-Flagellation, Sex Work, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Vampire Bucky Barnes, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-08 09:23:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14691180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seapigeon/pseuds/seapigeon
Summary: In the backdrop of the Second World War, an unusual alliance forms between a priest desperate to save innocents and a vampire who has his own reasons to hate the Third Reich.  It soon becomes clear that there's more than a common enemy drawing them together.  Trouble is, it's a sin.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Umikkchann](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umikkchann/gifts).



> A few notes to start:
> 
> This is inspired by the amazing Priest!Steve and Vampire!Bucky art created by the stupendously talented [umikochannart](http://umikochannart.tumblr.com). Link [ here](http://umikochannart.tumblr.com/post/173871959452/prieststeve-and-vampirebucky-hmmm).
> 
> This story starts in 1940 and will span the war years and maybe beyond.
> 
> The title Nacht und Nebel, meaning "Night and Fog", was a Third Reich protocol initiated in December 1941 for deportation and systematic murder of political prisoners or those suspected of resistance in occupied countries. Most often, people would be arrested in the middle of the night and simply disappear. Family and friends would be denied any information. This was intended to terrorize and intimidate soldiers and civilians alike, and create an atmosphere that rendered people too frightened to stand up to the regime.
> 
> This reminded me of how a vampire strikes. 
> 
> Fair warning, this isn't going to be the most lighthearted fic, given its subject matter. Steve is very repressed and ashamed of his sexuality and his past, and Bucky's been a vampire long enough to start losing the human part of himself (Hydra may have helped this along). However, Steve and Bucky will find happiness with each other in time.
> 
> It's a WIP. I'm going to try to keep the chapters short so I can update once a week. Someone please sign on to be my official harasser! (seriously, taking applications XD)
> 
> A note on a name: Étienne is a common French version of Steven. French characters will call him this throughout. Sometimes they may refer to him as Père Étienne, which just means Father Steven.
> 
> Apologies as always for my bad French and my insistence on plot. Translations are in the end note.

It’s been four days, twenty-one hours, and thirty-six minutes since he fed.He feels it etched on his cramping body and gouged into his mind, inescapable.He _needs it_.He needs blood and it’s driving him to a place beyond insane.

His head feels like it’s about to split open.The deprivation is as intensely awful as the early days of the change, when he tried to deny himself.He’s not in the business of denial anymore, but today a little hesitation would have gone a long way.

On a metal table, restrained, he’s dying of thirst. 

They poisoned the man, of course.It’s a trick that’s been used to capture his people before.Poison a victim, something without a taste or smell, a slow killer…and leave him where dark things can find him.Something that’s either hungry or greedy will bite.

This time, it was him. 

_You know better, James.You know sometimes easy prey is too good to be true._

It’s too late now.All he can do is wait to see what they want, and that’s really, truly all he can do.The thing around his head is paralyzing him.

They haven’t tried to put a stake through his chest or set him on fire yet.He’ll count that as a good sign for now.He’s heard stories of others being sought as hitmen, security, sexual conquests, and a dozen other ridiculous things.He hopes it’s something as simple as that.

In the meantime, he’s left to wonder.And suffer.

 

 

 

Hours pass.Or maybe they’re minutes.They could be _years,_ the way he feels them _._

It hurts.

It _hurts_.

He can’t even beg.

 

 

 

 

The world narrows to one massive ache and the only way to avoid feeling it is to stop existing.He dissociates.Fades into white noise.

_Maybe this is dying._

 

 

 

Slowly, sound comes to his ears and enough of him is present to attend to it.Footsteps.Little shuffling sounds, the clink of metal, running water. 

Light is next, pink and veined through his eyelids.He still can’t open his eyes.

Smell.Something strong and astringent.

_Touch._

His skin crawls.He has never wanted to recoil more in his life, and it’s been a long life. 

A man is examining him.He knows by the smell it’s a man.A bad one.That sort of thing is obvious after a while; bad people always have a certain odor, a hint of rot.The man’s hands are small, blunt, and soft.There’s no gentleness to them.The instruments he uses are cold and biting against James’s skin.

There’s something _inside_ his arm.He can feel it, along with the movement of fluid in his veins.He’s conscious of that all day, every day, a familiar tickle.This is coming from the outside, though.It’s so wrong it’s vertigo-inducing.

“You,” the other man says at last, “are alive.”

He’s not the first to be surprised.Not many people know strigoi can be alive or dead.James has been alive for four hundred years, give or take.Though it’s pretty clear that said life is in jeopardy now.

“I hoped you were…not.”He sighs as if he’s being deprived of something.“Still, you are an acceptable specimen.Herr Schmidt and Baron Zemo will be pleased.” 

There’s pressure at his head as the man makes some adjustments to the _thing_ that’s keeping him still and useless.

“Do you have a name, I wonder?” he muses as he works.“It doesn’t really matter.You’ll have no need of it soon.”

And then pain hits him, brilliant and sundering, and he breaks into a thousand pieces. 

 

 

 

 

He’s halfway through his Hail Marys when he feels the other priest’s presence.Steve finishes, noting the count so he can pick up where he left off, and turns, a greeting on his lips.It dies when he’s met with the gravest expression he’s ever seen on Père Govinden’s face.

“You must leave,” Père Govinden says without preamble.“You must go, Étienne, before the war begins.”

Père Govinden is old, and has seen a war with the Germans before.

“The papers say the Maginot Line will hold,” Steve tries.

“They are wrong.”

Steve blinks at him, troubled by the starkness of his words.

“Are you so unsure of your countrymen?” he asks.It would never occur to him that the American military would fall to invasion.Then again, they didn’t share a border with Germany.

“I am sure of the will of my countrymen,” the elder priest returns.“But will alone does not win wars.History has been quite clear on that.”

 

 

 

Père Govinden says nothing when he’s still there the next day, and the next, and the one after that.He does cast concerned eyes at Steve once in a while.

“The Lord will not judge you for returning home, nor will anyone here,” he offers when a week has gone by.“Please, Étienne.You must have a mother who worries.A family.”

Steve fingers the spine of the battered Bible his mother had given him when he was nine.

“ _Mais non, Père_ ,” he breathes.“ _Seuls les fantômes me manqueront_.”

The old man’s brows draw down, but he says nothing more. 

 

 

 

If there is to be a war, Steve reasons, this is where he should be.This is where the Word of God will be needed most.Wars are godless things; at home men whispered to him in the confessional, recounting their sins.The things he heard in that airless box - _In the war I shot a child, I watched men rape a girl, I let my comrade die so I would live and then I took his rations, I can’t sleep without hearing bullets and shells and it makes me so crazy I almost strangled my wife._ There are suicides, too, and he isn’t the only one who’s noticed how many were veterans of the Great War.

He came here for a mission, and it seems he’ll have one, if Père Govinden’s dire prognostications come to pass.

 

 

 

It happens, swift and shocking in its completeness.France is occupied.The war begins and ends in less than a week.

“They thought they would not come through the Ardennes,” Père Govinden scoffs.“They forget about Hannibal and his elephants.” 

 

 

 

Steve hears Adolf Hitler on the radio for the first time and is filled with dread.He speaks like the devil, with passion and bluster and carefully chosen words.In all the stories the devil is charismatic, magnetic in his ability to lead men and angels astray.He suspects there are rather more men than angels in the Third Reich.

He sees resolve around him, though.Not the least of which comes from Père Govinden, who stands at the pulpit and preaches thinly-veiled resistance.The old man who tried to send him home flirts with trouble like it’ll find them anyhow.

 

 

 

On the kind of still night where it almost seems possible to hear the Blitz over the channel, Steve wakes in a sweat, and he’s aching.He breathes.Wills it to go away.It won’t.

It’s been almost five years in the priesthood, and it won’t go away.He’s said every prayer, done every ritual, abstained from every pleasure, flogged himself bloody.It won’t go away.This _deviance_.This sin. 

He gets up and strips.Only the crucifix remains around his neck on a leather cord.He stops to slip his mother’s rosary on, too.Then Steve reaches for the discipline.

He kneels before God; the stone floor is cold and painful on his knees.

_Lord, I do not wish this.I do not wish for lust, or for the sin of desiring men.I do my penance and beg for your divine mercy._

He breathes out and hefts the discipline.Then he flicks his wrist with force, and the first lash lands.It sears fire into his back and Steve bites back a hiss.

Not enough.He can still see him behind his eyes, the pale expanse of his skin, the dextrous fingers undoing his belt and sliding down, down—

Again.This time he swings hard enough to draw blood.It flays open a line across his ribs and his mind whites out with pain.Even the thin drip of blood hurts when it trembles over the border of the wound.

_Good.Good.Pain is your salvation.You’re not that lost boy starting fights and defiling yourself in dingy bars and tenements anymore._

He swings until he can no longer hold the flogger, and then he lays naked on the stones praying.When he shivers so hard his teeth might wake Père Govinden, Steve struggles to his feet and leans on the desk.The pain is a roaring throb, but it’s gone.

The treacherous desire is gone.

 

 

 

As _automne_ bleeds into _hiver,_ Steve can see Père Govinden’s health fading.He must be in his late seventies, and he’s lost weight in the last few months.Steve has seen it before.It might not be tuberculosis - there’s no raking, bloody cough like his mother’s - but there’s something inside that’s killing him.

“Father, _s’il-vous-plaît_ , go to the doctor,” Steve begs.

The priest laughs at him, but not unkindly.“Unlike you, Étienne, I know when it is my time to go.”

 

 

 

It doesn’t take long.By December he spends most of his days in bed, though he still hobbles out on Sunday to preach.Steve tries to make sure he eats.More often than not, though, the other man isn’t hungry.

It’s the day after Christmas when Père Govinden summons him.As he goes to the man’s bedside, it occurs to him that it’s St. Stephen’s Day.A fine day to die, if that’s what this is; his won’t be the first hand Steve holds in the crossing.

“I am called,” he says.He's feverish and his eyes hold the unusual brightness of a man seeing beyond earthly boundaries.“I know you’ll stay.”

“ _Oui_ ,” Steve says softly.There’s no one else, and he won’t leave this small but devoted congregation in a time of so much need.It’s getting worse, he knows; the resistance radio and the rumor mill speak of death camps, of Jews being rounded up and disappearing en masse from Drancy.

“There is something you must know, Étienne.You spoke of _les fantômes_.”

He nods.

“It is not the ghosts you should fear.”

He watches Père Govinden.Waits for him to go on.He does, tiredly, the brightness starting to fade.

“When war comes,” he says, “it strengthens them.”

“Who, Father?”

“ _Les sangsues_.”

_The bloodsuckers._ Steve blinks, uncertain.It’s not a common phrase.He’s only seen it in cheap novels.He can’t mean _vampires_.It has to be a metaphor.

“I…I don’t understand.”

He clasps Steve’s hand.“All the blood…all the death…it draws them.They come to feast.I have seen it, Étienne.In the trenches.”His eyes are far away, remembering.“The cross and the holy water will not work.Only fire.”

“Fire,” he repeats.He nods, then dabs the sweat from the other man’s forehead.The fever is in his brain.He spoke influenza nonsense enough in his own youth to know. 

“Be careful,” he pleads.“They spin words like spiders build webs.Beautiful, but always made to trap you.”His hand tightens on Steve’s.“Keep a torch lit. _Un feu sacré._ ”

“I will, Father, I will.”

“ _Promets-moi._ ”

Steve cups his cheek.“ _Oui, toujours._ ”

The old man breathes, and it’s more and more uneven.It won’t be long now.

“If they come for the Jews,” he wheezes, “or anyone else, protect them.”

“With my life,” Steve responds solemnly.

He pats Steve’s arm.His hand is cold.“I think now…last rites…”

Steve recites them in French from memory.Père Govinden closes his eyes in something like contentment, and twenty minutes later, he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
>  
> 
> "Mais non, Père, seuls les fantômes me manqueront." - No, Father, only the ghosts miss me.  
> automne - autumn  
> hiver - winter  
> S'il-vous-plaît - Please  
> Oui - Yes  
> les fantômes - the ghosts  
> les sangsues - 'bloodsuckers'. It's used more often to mean literal or metaphorical leeches, but also refers to vampires.  
> un feu sacré - a holy fire  
> Promets-moi - Promise me  
> Oui, toujours - Yes, always.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve plunges headlong into the Resistance, and Bucky breaks free.

He keeps his promises to Père Govinden. 

First, in regards to the Jewish people in town.He’s noticed that people talk about them in two ways.One, as _Israélites._ That’s the more respectful term.When they say _Juifs_ , they say it with disdain, and it makes anger burn low in Steve’s gut.He tells himself it won’t be the first time he has to educate seemingly good Catholics on what _love thy neighbor_ means, nor will it be the last.Beyond the morality discussion, if anyone thinks allowing the Jews to be persecuted will somehow spare them from similar treatment, they’re wrong.That’s not how bullies work.He wants to keep them from learning that the hard way, if he can, but it’s an uphill battle.

Post-invasion, people seem to believe the Germans will sail across the English Channel, take Britain, and the war will be over.Over and _lost_.The resignation makes them apathetic to the ugly things espoused by the Nazi party, because what can they do about it?He understands; he’s been there, so trapped that there’s nothing to do but go along with something awful, but there are no shackles on his wrists now.He’ll fight until it’s really over.

With that in mind, Steve ventures out two days after Père Govinden’s departure.He waits until night.In black he’ll be easy to miss, and he knows how to get places unnoticed.Though the last time he had to sneak around, he was much smaller.

This isn’t the time to reminisce, though that’s the wrong word for it.He has an important visit to make right now.There aren’t many Jews in town, maybe a hundred altogether, but those hundred lives mean as much to him as all the rest.He’s positive he can convince his congregation to feel the same way if they don’t already.But first, he needs more information.

Rabbi Fleury looks pleasantly surprised to see him, if a little worried at the hour.He ushers him in with a nervous look and shuts the door.

“Shalom, Père Étienne.”He goes in for double air kisses and Steve reciprocates.

“Peace be with you,” he responds, with a dip of his head.The sentiments are similar, from what he understands.

“There is not much peace to be found these days,” the rabbi sighs.

Outwardly, things are calm.The structure of a day hasn’t changed much.But there are Germans everywhere, consuming resources and manpower.Their black and red banners hang on buildings, and with them came the censorship, curfews, and the sense that there are watchful eyes in every window.

“No, there isn’t,” Steve agrees.It’s quiet now, but he knows what will happen the longer the occupation drags on.He saw something similar happen in America a decade ago.With the currency devalued and the Germans taking the best of everything, there will be unemployment, bread lines, starvation and desperation.This faux tranquility won’t last.

He refocuses on Fleury.“How are you?”

“Fine, for the moment.”He considers Steve, and Steve isn't sure what he’s looking for, or if he’s found it when he speaks again.“I was sorry to hear of Père Govinden’s passing.”

“Yes.He’ll be missed.”Steve already misses him.The old man was a gentle, calming presence, though there was no mistaking that he had an iron spine.

The rabbi busies himself making tea.When they’re at the table waiting for it to cool, steam rising between them, he takes the leap.

“This isn’t a social call.”

Steve shakes his head.“I want to help.”

“It’s risky.They have no love for the church.”

He’s heard as much.It’s not surprising.The true message of Catholicism doesn’t really seem to mesh with eugenics.

He thinks about how to respond to the rabbi.He won’t pretend he’s unafraid; that seems too much like pride with a side helping of stupidity.This is war and the Germans aren’t known for their mercy.There’s a good chance he might get caught and tortured, or sent to a labor camp, or executed.He knows that, and still it’s obvious what he must do.It should be obvious to everyone.

“It’s riskier, I think, to let them win.”

Rabbi Fleury lets out a breath and nods. 

 

 

 

He’s too late to keep them off the books.Pétain wasted no time once the Vichy government was established, declaring that Jews had to register with the police back in September.Fearing retribution, most of them did as they were told.Only the four children born since then are undocumented.

That night, Steve creates baptismal certificates for the children.He changes their names enough not to be recognizably Jewish, and makes arrangements with people he knows will take them in as their own if the need arises.That’s four out of a hundred and thirty six accounted for.

The rest, he and Rabbi Fleury agree, must escape.Soon, before the government has the chance to do much of anything with their list of names.This is especially important for those who weren’t born in France.It’s increasingly clear that émigrés are targets. 

Thankfully, there are ways out.Spain is sympathetic; rumor is that they’ve been looking the other way when people trickle in over the Pyrenees.That’s a long way from here.But if they can get these families out of the Zone Occupée, passage south to the mountains should be easier. 

He knows next to nothing about mountains.He’s lived the entirety of his short life in New York City, until recently.Champsecret felt like another _planet_ when he arrived.He’s used to it now; the quiet, the forest, the feeling of space.But this little town is mostly flat, and the only mountains he’s ever seen are the Catskills and the Poconos.Somehow he doubts they really compare to the Pyrenees.

Is the mountain cold anything like the winter wind screaming through criss-crossing avenues in New York, he wonders?Steve remembers that well, the fingers of wind shredding past clothing as if it were tissue paper and freezing him half to death.He also remembers what he had to do, sometimes, to find shelter on that kind of night.

He still isn’t sure which is worse: trying to sleep out in the cold, or warmth earned with his body.

Steve sighs.His mind has been a minefield the last few days.He knows it’s the solitude that does it to him.He shouldn’t feel alone in the presence of God, but he’s weak and he needs something tangible.A voice within the walls, a human presence.Eyes that look upon him with kindness.Père Govinden had been particularly good at that. 

He can’t afford to get lost in his own traumas and insecurities if he hopes to help these people.The thought is sobering, and it helps him to push everything else down and concentrate.There are elders on his list of 136 to get over the mountains.It will be difficult for some of them to make the crossing, if not impossible.He looks over at the cellar door.

_My Father’s house has many rooms.*_

Indeed it does.

 

 

He wakes with a jolt.Everything feels wrong.

The thirst is his constant companion, so that, he’s used to, but this pain, this heaviness - why does his arm hurt like this?It burns like it’s on fire, like his fingers are being dipped in molten metal that sears him down to bone.He tries to scream and the sound shocks him.He’s not paralyzed, but he is strapped down. 

James screams until he’s hoarse.

“It feels pain,” a male voice observes.It’s cold, clinical.

“Yes.”The second voice is familiar.It’s the same man who touched him while he was paralyzed; the one who was disappointed that he’s alive.James can see him now.He’s short, with a head that’s too big and glasses over empty eyes.

“We can use this pain,” the other man says, and James’s eyes rove to him.He jerks on the table, fear lighting in the deep parts of his brain.He must be hallucinating.He’s a skeleton in a uniform, taut skin red as blood, oh _God_ , blood, he’s so thirsty and it hurts _so bad…_

“And his need to… _feed_ , we can use that, too.I’ve observed his behavior and his brain chemistry.It’s like an addiction.He’ll do anything for a meal if we starve him long enough.”

The skeleton squeezes the small man’s shoulder.“Arnim, you are truly a visionary.How long will it take?”

The one called Arnim moves closer and James throws himself against the restraints.He’s strong, stronger than mortal men, he should be able to break free, but all he succeeds in doing is reawakening the incredible pain in his left arm.It’s crippling.

“Not long.”

James’s eyes fly open when he feels the metal on his head again.Not again.Not this thing.

“No!” he shouts.“ _Nein!_ ”But his words are meaningless.

 

 

 

There’s nothing but the imperative after that, _comply comply comply._

_Kill, and you shall fill your hollow belly._

_This is all you are.Rejoice in your purpose._

_Drink and rejoice._

_Heil Hydra._

He does what they want, a ravening animal, until...

 

 

 

Until the day he can’t.

The parents are dead already.His lips are wet with their blood.  He stops, panting, the world sharpening into focus.  This is the only time he feels like anything other than a raw nerve.The only time he realizes he can think, before Zola and Schmidt and Zemo erase him again and starve him to the point that he has no identity but need.

He breathes and stares at the girl.Young, red hair, terrified but brave with a small hatchet in her hand and a younger brother behind her.She’ll swing at him.He knows it.

There’s some ache burgeoning in his chest.For once it’s not hunger or thirst or the pain of dying slowly, _interminably_.

It’s memory.

A name comes to him like a divine whisper.  _Natalia._

He staggers, drops down to his knees.He had a daughter, once, with the soul of a warrior, like this one.Red hair, green eyes.It’s been centuries, but he loved her.

The girl is crying as she swings the hatchet.He catches it with his metal arm an inch from his face.She lets go and falls back, little fists up, ready to die defending her brother.

Sobs rip out of him.He apologizes in every language he knows because _he doesn’t know where he is_.He doesn’t know where he is or who he’s killing or _why_.

“Imi pare rau,” he gasps.“I’m sorry.Je regrette.Es tut mir leid.прости!” 

The girl doesn’t falter.She’s braced herself for death.

_Not tonight, little one._

James - yes, James, that’s his name, _Iacob Bogdan Barnescu,_ born the 10th of March, 1617, the seventh of seven sons, cursed - lifts the hand still made of flesh and uses the edge of the hatchet to pry open the panel at his left shoulder.There’s something in there attached to his nerves to shock him into submission if he misbehaves.He misbehaved frequently at first.  

Without that, they can't stop him.  He’s tried to remove it before and passed out from the pain.Not this time.This time, he’ll do it if it kills him.

It hurts so bad he vomits.Vessels burst in the whites of his eyes from the screams he holds in.  The children are long gone before he rips the shock device away, along with the entire panel, and drops everything with a clang.  The arm hangs dead at his side.  Sweating, shaking, he stares at the image of the swastika nestled in the many arms of the Hydra beast.

He’ll kill them all.

 

 

 

The second promise, Steve reflects _,_ is less clear cut.It’s one thing to agree to keep a holy fire burning; it’s another to actually know what to do for this situation.It’s not like Père Govinden left written instructions, and he certainly didn’t learn anything about vampires at the seminary.Steve wonders if the man was just out of his head, delirious as he died, but his gut believes him.Monstrous deeds breed monsters.If Père Govinden saw them in the trenches, they’re real and they’re out there.

After some thought, the answer is obvious.The Paschal should be the source.It’s the holiest fire there is, renewed every Easter and carried through the year.Most don’t keep it burning all the time, but it’s only a simple change of routine (and a hit to the already meager church budget) to have it going indefinitely.

He holds a lucernarium at the start of vespers every day so he never forgets to tend the fire.The parishioners think it’s a little odd, he can tell, but they must attribute it to him being American like they do most things.Although the longer the occupation drags on, the less American he feels.He’s on French soil, living as a citizen squashed under the same regime’s thumb.He’s one of them.  That's why they accept his strange vigils.

That reminds him - if he wants to stay here, he needs his own set of forged papers.He harbors no illusions that the Nazis won’t deport him if they realize he’s American.He’ll ask Alain tonight.

 

 

 

Some time later, there’s a soft knock at the side door of the church.He takes a breath and steels himself.Every time they do this there’s a chance they might be caught.At best, they’d be censured for breaking curfew.At the worst…well, he doesn’t want to think about that.

He opens the door.Laure steps in with a nod; Alain is behind her.The other two will arrive soon enough with the supplies for his guests downstairs. 

The slow exodus of the town’s Jewish citizens has so far gone unnoticed.Six families have made it over the mountains.However, there are still fourteen families to go.Four more have refused to leave, and there’s nothing he or Rabbi Fleury can do about that.Those too old or too ill to make the journey stay in the church basement until Steve can find a place for them in the nunneries or monasteries nearby.He's so far found less resistance in the church than from regular French citizens; collaborators are everywhere.It doesn’t help that Maréchal Pétain is overtly anti-semitic in deed, if not in word.

“Étienne,” Alain says, dropping a folder on his desk once they’re in his office, “they are increasing patrols.”

“Let them patrol until their feet fall off,” Laure says around her cigarette.He’s asked her roughly a thousand times not to smoke in here, but Steve lets it go.Her father was killed in the Great War and now her husband is a prisoner of war.Some days, Steve thinks she would burn the whole of Germany if given the chance.He hopes to temper her…but only a little.

“Before I forget, these are for you.”Alain holds out an envelope.Inside are the very documents Steve was going to ask him for.The _Carte D’Identité_ names him as Roget, Étienne, French national, né le 23 Septembre, 1916, in Amiens.Alain continues, “Père Govinden asked me to make papers for you when it was clear you were going to stay.Lucky for you, an Étienne Roget already existed, though he died three days after he was born.”He quirks an eyebrow.“He lives on in the priest of Champsecret.”

Steve nods.He’ll have to remember the change of birthdate.He should feel uncomfortable at the thought of stealing the identity of a deceased child, but it must be done, and in the taking, maybe he can do some justice to a life cut much too short.

Alain is watching him.

“I have to say, Étienne, I thought you were older.”

He’s not the first to think that.It’s this tall, sturdy body he finally grew into, and his eyes.They told him at the seminary that he carries his burdens there.“I feel older.”

“Age is something that doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese,” Laure says, dismissive.“Where _are_ they?”

A moment later there’s a knock.Steve frowns.It doesn’t sound right.It only takes him a second, and a repeat of the sharp rapping, to know why.It’s coming from the front, not the side.Alain’s realized it, too, and he’s white as milk.

“ _Cacher!”_ Steve whispers, low but sharp.“ _Ma chambre.”_ He points, and Laure takes Alain’s arm to lead him away on silent feet.The woman has nerves of steel. 

Steve sweeps Alain’s papers into the desk drawer and drops the biggest Bible he has on top of them.Then he takes three calming breaths, smoothes his clothing, and heads for the door.Just before he opens it, he pulls on a string hidden behind a half-brick under the font.It will ring the bell below to let his guests know they have to be quiet and should be prepared to run.As much as a woman with a broken foot and two old men can run.

He opens the door in a groan of wood and hinges, and there’s a Nazi waiting for him on the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"My Father's house has many rooms..." - John 14:2
> 
> Bucky is Romanian in this, and as such, a type of vampire known as a strigoi. They can be alive or dead, and have various abilities which will be elaborated upon later in the story. One of the ways it was believed a person could become a strigoi was to be born the seventh child of the same sex in a family. Hence, seventh of seven sons, cursed.
> 
> Champsecret is a small town in the Normandy region in Northwest France. I just liked the name.
> 
> Steve's real birthday is his usual one, July 4, 1918. He's 22, almost 23 in this chapter. Realistically, someone his age would be a deacon, not a priest, as that requires several more years of study. But let's just say Père Govinden sped up the process because of the impending war and his faith in Steve. 
> 
> Laure's quip about cheese is a quote by Luis Bunuel.
> 
> Some demystification of church terminology:
> 
> Paschal candle - a large white candle blessed and lit with sacred fire each year at Easter. Per the interwebs: "This represents the risen Christ, as a symbol of light (life) dispelling darkness (death). As it is lit, the minister may say words similar to: "The light of Christ, rising in Glory, dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds." 
> 
> Lucernarium - ritual lighting of candles or a lamp in the church, done mostly around Easter now. In the past, was part of Vespers.
> 
> Vespers - evening prayer, usually around 6 pm-ish
> 
>  
> 
> Translations:
> 
> né le 23 Septembre, 1916 - born 23 September, 1916  
> Cacher! Ma chambre! - Hide! My room!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James tries to go home, but finds that it isn't the way he left it. Steve learns that he can't save everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I had to work 9 days straight and my brain turned to mush, but I tried to make up for it with an extra-meaty chapter. Hopefully back on schedule now!

“Good evening, Père.”The man on the threshold is trying to be stern, but the creak of restless hands in leather gloves gives him away.“I am sorry to disturb you.”

His French is _terrible_ , the German accent grating.

Steve is better at reading people than most.It’s a crucial skill in the flesh trade, because people who avail themselves of prostitutes often do not consider them human or important _._ There’s a reason so many turn up dead.Once upon a time Steve had to know, in ten minutes or less, if a person was likely to hurt or kill him. 

It’s one of the few good things that life gave him - this ability to sniff out intent, independent of expressions or words.There are tells.This nervous soldier has none of them.

“It’s no trouble,” Steve replies.“Please, come in.”

“ _Merci_ ,” he says.He looks apprehensive as he steps in.

He’s young.Or maybe he’s the same age as Steve.Steve isn’t as good a judge of that as he is of character.In any case, he’s young, blond, with hazel eyes and a jawline a little too strong for his face.

The other thing that harsh life gave him was the ability to act.To _lie,_ though he tries not to - rescue efforts aside.Steve smiles his most benign smile, making himself simple and harmless.Paternal. 

“Let me get you something.There isn’t much, but the sacramental wine—”

The other man cuts him off, distressed at the very suggestion.“Oh, no, Père, please.”

That was a test; he must be some kind of Christian.If he wasn’t, that wine would have been out of the cabinet faster than Steve could blink.All wine is good here, even the sacramental kind, and the Germans have so far been taking advantage of that.If Steve doesn’t hide most of the bottles, he’ll find himself using sacramental beet juice at Mass soon enough.

He taps a hand on a pew.“Please, sit.How can I be of service?”

The soldier drops down to the pew like he’d been waiting for Steve to invite him.His gloved hands twist a little more in his lap.He pales suddenly and reaches up to pull his hat off.Steve would laugh if he couldn’t see the man’s gun gleaming in its holster inside his jacket.

There is never a moment of his life where he isn’t keenly aware of power imbalances.

“They do not—” the soldier stammers.“I haven’t—”He’s bending his hat out of shape.“I want to make confession.And…take communion.” 

Why wouldn’t a Catholic Nazi land on his doorstep when he has three Jews hidden in his basement and two members of the resistance in his bedroom, with two more on the way?Steve puts a friendly hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“Of course.Wait for me in the confessional.”

 

 

 

It’s nearly an hour later when he finally shows Oskar out.Oskar had a lot to confess.It took everything Steve had to keep his hands from shaking as he laid the hoste on the young man’s tongue.Not out of shock or horror or fear.It’s rage.

Laure has been chain-smoking in his room.She’s unapologetic as always. 

_What eez ass-mah, Étienne?_

“Go home,” he says.

“What happened?” Alain demands.He’s concerned, and Steve realizes it’s because he’s pale and drawn like a bowstring now that the soldier is gone.

“Absolution,” Steve bites off.

Laure offers a bitter burst of laughter that speaks for them all.

 

 

 

He can’t sleep.Anger still runs in his veins like a drug.

In the past, he would go out and walk until he was too exhausted to hear the roar.He can’t now; if he’s discovered breaking curfew, the consequences could be severe, and he won’t risk the lives downstairs.But he has to do _something_.This anger - it makes him do stupid things.Always has.

His eyes drift over to the discipline.

_Wrath IS a sin._

But with a suddenness that feels like a kick to the gut, he remembers the fights.So many fights.He let others _beat_ the rage out of him after his mother’s death - not that he didn’t get his own punches in, and that’s worse. 

Pain - his own, and that of others - was the only thing bright and searing enough to scatter the anger, then.He feels sick.The lingering cigarette smell isn’t helping.Steve backs out of the room and rests his head against the cool stone wall.

After a few minutes, he goes back in.He strips the linens from the bed and gathers anything else that holds the smell, and drags it all to the washbasin.Chores are as mindless as a fight, and if he gets the water hot enough, the scald will clear his mind. 

 

 

By morning his skin is raw and there’s a blister at the base of his pointer and middle fingers that _aches_ , but he’s calm and the smell is gone.He knows, also, what he must do.

In the seminary, his teachers made it clear that betraying a penitent is unacceptable.Repeating what’s heard in confession is punishable by excommunication.However, that’s only if the penitent’s identity is revealed in the process.He can talk about the _content_ of Oskar’s confession all he wants, so long as he doesn’t tell anyone who it came from. 

That’s exactly what he's going to do.He’ll repeat every word if it can help the Resistance and the people around him.He hopes, distantly, that it might even help Oskar, but he isn’t sure there is help for someone like him.Someone who carries out orders he knows are wrong, and who seeks forgiveness out of a fear of damnation for sins he won’t stop committing.

Giving him absolution was like chewing on glass.What else could he do, remembering the gun strapped to the other man’s chest and the people he had to keep safe, hidden below their feet?Steve knows his words don’t really matter, and that’s the only comfort.God is the one who metes out true forgiveness.Steve is just a proxy.An imperfect one, and between him and God, that’s no secret. 

He tried, as carefully and inoffensively as he could, to make Oskar understand that forgiveness required contrition, and the intent to change one’s ways.He knew he could get away with a certain degree of scolding one would expect of a priest hearing confession; it’s part of the ritual, part of the reason people do it at all.To hear a sage tell them something they already know in their hearts.

Lord help him, he told the soldier to come back.It was a stupid thing to do, but if he can get him _comfortable_ , build a rapport, he can push him to reveal more.It’s wrong to combat sin with sin, and the deception _is_ sinful - but Steve knows where he’s going when he takes his last breath.There’s too much red in his ledger to ever reach full atonement.It doesn’t mean he won’t try.And if he’s already lost, it’s better for him to take on this sin, so others don’t have to.

He sits down and starts a coded letter.He’ll drop it at Laure’s later, and after that, he’ll stop by Rabbi Fleury’s.They have to move faster.Change is coming, and not for the better.

 

 

 

 

It takes him weeks to understand life again.He’s been so deprived of _everything_ \- air, light, food, company, conversation, kindness - that it’s too much at once.When he can’t run anymore, James hides in the attic of an abandoned building, curled in the dark, trying to remember autonomy.

He was never really autonomous, though.The thirst controls him.Centuries ago, he had cause to hate what he needed, but that was based on morality.He’s over that.He is a predator, people are his prey, and it’s just that simple.No one curses the bear for needing to eat.

All the same, like the bear, he is a creature that most people fear.The Nazis - Hydra - know what he is, what compulsions drive him, and they had the audacity to capture him and try to _exploit_ him.What kind of madmen _are_ they? 

Eventually, when he’s forced to venture out, he processes that the _where_ is Poland.Not so far from home, though it’s a big country, and crawling with the people who tortured him.He can’t bear the sight of their uniforms, nor the harsh sound of their language.He isn’t alone.The people here seethe in their captivity.

James stays as far away from people as he can.He’s nervous, twitchy, half out of his mind with the fear that they’ll find him again, starve him, make him hurt people.He hurts people every time he feeds but it’s _random_ , he isn’t anyone’s sword.Beyond that, the fucking arm they put on him is still nonfunctional, a dead weight on his body that makes his neck and back ache.Never mind that it’s extremely conspicuous; if they’re looking for him, he’s the proverbial sore thumb.

The arm either has to be fixed or come off entirely.He’d prefer it be the former.The memories of them removing it the first time around are untouchable, if he wants to stay sane.He knocks his head back against the attic wall, trying to push Zola’s dispassionate voice from his head.

_(let us see if it can regenerate)_

James pushes down the panic.If nothing else, the lifeless metal fingers are good to bite down on when he wants to scream.There’s no pain, save the ache in his jaw. 

He’s driven out an hour later, when the first stirrings of thirst hit him.He can’t tolerate the feeling anymore.The very thought of it progressing to full-blown, pain-addled _need_ makes him tremble. 

There’s no trembling when he sights his target.He’s wandered out of a bar, done for the evening or maybe going in search of a woman.His uniform is perfectly starched like Schmidt’s, his cheeks rosy in an echo of that creature that urged Zola to take him apart.Even in the haze of vodka, this man takes the time to center his swastika armband and put on his cap.A true Nazi.

Truly _dead._

Rage ignites in his veins.It’s a low throb at first, but it mounts and crests as he follows the soldier through streets made empty by curfew.He catches on slower than he should.James savors the slow build of his panic as he realizes he’s being followed.It isn’t difficult to herd him into a dead end.

Fear is rolling off him in waves.It still can’t cover that scent of rot.The smell of evil.

The soldier pulls his gun.

“ _Zeige dich!_ ” he shouts.James can see the sheen of sweat beneath the band of the hat, betraying the command in his voice.

_Show yourself._

“ _Keine Angst,_ ” James says, and he’s not like this - he doesn’t toy or terrorize, he just does what he needs to do, fast, so his victims won’t suffer - but he’s so _angry,_ and it makes him cruel.“ _Du wirst alles sehen_ ,” he growls. 

He dies slow, eyes open, begging for mercy.James has none to give.

 

 

 

In another week he crosses the border into Romania, but everything is wrong.They’re here.The Nazis are here, too, and the Hungarians and the Soviets.There’s nothing they haven’t touched.

His hopes of going home to Costanta and resting by the sea are dashed.He can’t be where they are.It seems like where they are is _everywhere_.Every country he crossed through, he saw their banners.They’re taking over the world, or at the very least, the continent.

Which means he has to leave. 

 

 

 

Radu, a friend of his that is young by strigoi standards, stares hard at the innards of the arm.He’s good with mechanical things but it’s clear he’s never seen anything like this.

“I will do my best, Iacob,” he says.

 

 

 

His best is good, but it takes a while.There are a lot of hours spent with him just staring at the wires, trying to map out what goes to what, or how it works in the first place.

“I just do not understand what is the power source,” Radu says, boggled.

“I am,” he replies, certain of it.

 

 

 

That night, he crawls into bed with Radu, dead arm and all.Radu isn’t old enough to be afraid of the more human things yet.He still likes sex, wants it, and they’re good together.

James didn’t always choose men.There was an interest, more than casual curiosity, if he’s brutally honest with himself, but he never pursued another male until after the change.He won’t saddle a woman with what they might create together, and if he and another strigoi made a child, it would be even worse.That’s a type of creature even the damned are leery of bringing into the world.

He thinks Radu was always this way.The blood rushes hot under his skin as he pants beneath James.He smells so _good_.It’s intoxicating, and James struggles not to bite as they fuck.It’s right there, right below the surface, coursing hard as he pushes the mechanic toward orgasm.It’s all he can give him in return for his work on the arm. 

He knows Radu doesn’t expect anything of him, but he wants to, and it’s…it’s good to know he can let someone get close without panicking.And that there is still pleasure in the world.He hikes the other man’s hips up slightly, bottoms out inside him, and Radu gasps and pushes his hands into James’s hair, frantic with pleasure.A few more hard thrusts and he’s gone, moaning through his release.James follows him, mouth latched over his jugular in what will probably be a fantastic bruise tomorrow.Orgasm feels like a kick in the solar plexus, like hitting cold water after a drop; it unmoors him.

In the aftermath, Radu is very still.It’s like he knows the fragility of the moment and the man he’s sharing it with.After a minute James returns to himself enough to move.His neck and back ache from the weight of the arm, but his mind is lighter.He sleeps deeply that night, naked and warm next to someone he knows won’t hurt him.

 

 

 

Two days later Radu connects one wire to another and James’s metal fingers twitch.Their eyes meet and Radu grins.Within the hour, James has full movement.The sensation isn’t quite right, but maybe that’s for the best.It’s enough to control the arm.That’s all he needs.

 

 

 

That night, they hunt.They’ve hunted together before, but Radu is, once again, young, and he likes to do the whole seduction thing.May God damn that Bram Stoker and his ridiculous ideas about their kind.Either way, James has never been able to play that game.He gets attached.

No chance of that when the Nazis are his targets.

Radu makes a face as they feed.“This is like eating gristle when there is a plate of sweetbreads one table away.”

This one _is_ particularly terrible.He tastes _sour,_ not like a fruit or vinegar might, but like spoiled milk.If not for the knowledge that they’ve removed someone evil from the world, it would be hard to stomach.

“They deserve to die,” James says, with more force than he intends.“All of them.”

Radu is watching him - has been the entire evening.James knows he’s different than the last time they spent time together.He’s moody and paranoid, vicious on the hunt, and once the kill is made he has to fight the compulsion to gorge, borne of too many days starved and the crippling fear that there won’t be a next meal.

“Did they do that to you?” Radu asks, gesturing at the arm.He could be talking about all of it, though.

“Yes,” James admits through his teeth.“And worse.”

“Mmm,” he hums, poking idly at the corpse to see if he has anything interesting on him, “then I think I shall be having a bit of Kraut with every meal, from now on.”

James smiles, and it feels like the first time in decades.

 

 

 

It’s tempting to stay there with him, oh yes.Radu’s life is quiet, secluded, and he’s easy company.There would be warm meals and a warm bed and plenty to keep him too busy to get lost in his own head.But none of that changes the fact they are living in an Axis state.Radu explained it all to him - the abdication of the King, the murders by the Iron Guards, Antonescu’s takeover.His home is a declared ally to the people who tortured him.

He can’t stay.He needs to get to a place where they can’t reach.Is there any such place?Listening to Radu, it’s clear that this is a world war in the truest sense of the word.He has a lot to say about America, though, and its reticence to enter the conflict.If they stay out of it, that’s where James wants to be.

West, then.That’s where he has to go.Spain and Portugal first, and a boat from there.He doesn’t know how he’ll manage, weeks at sea with a limited prey pool, but he’ll worry about that when the time comes.For now, he must cross the maze of wounds that is Europe without getting caught.At least with the Nazis everywhere, he’ll always be fed.

 

 

 

Steve breathes through his nose.Emotions are ricocheting through him with nauseating force.He hasn’t slept in days.

Three nights ago, he went to visit Rabbi Fleury.And he wasn’t there.No one was; the house was empty.

The door wasn’t broken down.He let them in.

Steve couldn’t help himself.He walked through the small house in a daze, noting the disarray of bags hastily packed, the still-life quality of everyday objects abandoned mid-use.In his gut, he knew they were never coming back.

His feet carried him to the other houses, those families who refused to leave and the few they hadn’t been able to get out yet.Forty-one people gone.Rounded up and deported under cover of night, to nowhere he could find.Not once they passed beyond Drancy.No one knew exactly what lay east, only that it was full of places it was best not to go.

In his grief, he forgot to be careful.He was seen.The patrolling officers brought him in, tossed him in a cell, and he’s been here ever since.He’s exhausted and hungry and _hurting_. 

It’s not his first time in a cell.At least he’s alone.Not like Brooklyn.There were always other people in Brooklyn, as angry and drunk and miserable as him.

Steve can’t shake the feeling that he failed them.It roils in his stomach, pounds doubting fists against the inside of his skull.It’s old and familiar and he hates it.

No matter how terrible he feels, he knows he has to pull it together.If they question him - _when_ they question him, he can’t give anything away.Other people are relying on his ability to keep a secret, and this is a secret worth dying for.He won’t let Laure or Alain or anyone else down.He won’t.

He cobbles himself back together, piece by piece, like he has so many times.Half the pieces are fake and flimsy and will fall apart someday, but it doesn’t matter as long as he gets through today.He can lie, and he will, unrestrainedly, for this.

 

 

Shockingly, or perhaps not, it’s Oskar that appears to take him from the cell.He unlocks the door, looking aggrieved all the while.

“I am sorry, Père Étienne.I didn’t know you were here until a few hours ago.”He sighs.“You must be more careful.What were you doing?”

“Walking,” Steve says softly.“It clears my mind, helps my insomnia.”

Oskar takes him by the elbow, apologetically awkward as he leads him down a hallway.“I told them there’s nothing to worry about with you.You’re loyal to the government.Just cooperate with questioning and don’t do it again.”

Steve’s bitten his tongue for so many confessions now, tamped down on what he should say, what he _wanted to say_ , and this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.He stops, making Oskar stumble slightly.The soldier looks back, confused.

“I am loyal to God, Oskar.”

He blinks several times.

“Of course, Father,” Oskar replies.“Of course.That is the first loyalty we all must keep.”

_And it’s the first one you abandoned._

Steve nods and starts forward again.

 

The questioning is done by a balding man to whom Steve is certain he’s an inconvenience.It’s nearly lunchtime and he can hear his stomach growling from across the desk.Steve is ravenous but he doesn’t think he could eat if offered anything.This place, these _people_ , all of it makes his skin crawl.

They’ve already made up their minds.They’re going to let him go.The lying is easy; the man’s barely paying attention to him.But on one thing, Steve doesn’t lie.

“Why were you at the rabbi’s house?”

“He’s a friend.”

The officer - Kakerlake’s his name - finally looks down his bulbous nose at Steve.

“A Jew is no one’s friend,” he enunciates.“You would be wise to remember that.There are places for holy men who can’t.” 

He eyes Steve’s collar with obvious distaste.Then he waves his hand in a clear dismissal, leaving Steve to find his own way out and stagger into sun he hasn’t seen in days, and a world where reality has finally crashed its way into all his heroic plans.

 

 

 

There are still six people in his basement.He _knows_ he’s being watched.Steve has enough food to last a little while.The small garden out back is growing well - he planted as many potatoes as he could, and pickling and fermenting might stretch the summer crops - but it won’t be sustainable.He didn’t have enough time to prepare.When the deep winter hits, they’ll starve together.

It makes for strange companionship, that.

 

 

 

He sees them all in church on Sunday, but the Resistance knows he’s drawn attention to himself.Only Laure is brave enough to keep in contact.It’s minutes - _minutes -_ once a week, and it’s killing him, even if he understands why. 

 

 

On the third Sunday, Laure embraces him and whispers in his ear, “They’ve invaded the Soviet Union.The communists are with us.”Her body is thin in his arms and she reeks of cigarettes.

 

 

On the fourth Sunday, she slips a note into his hand when she shakes it on the way out.It’s encoded, so it takes him a little work to decode it, but it offers hope. 

_18 Juillet, transport sud._

 

 

It’s late the next time Oskar comes to see him.It’s been a while.Steve imagines he got in a bit of trouble for his churchgoing.He looks even more nervous than usual, and has trouble meeting Steve’s eyes. 

Steve takes his spot in the confessional with resigned dread.

“Bless me, father, for I have sinned,” Oskar starts.“It has been five weeks since my last confession.”

“May God, the Father of all mercies, help you make a good Confession,” Steve recites, bracing himself.

Oskar is silent for what seems like three whole minutes.

“I have lied,” he says at last, “to my superiors.”

Steve waits him out.There’s no way he’s done.But the minutes tick by, and Oskar says nothing.

“Why?” Steve leads, gentling his voice.

“They are not good men.” 

“War brings out the worst in humanity.”

Oskar’s voice cracks as he says, “It has brought out the worst in me.You made me realize that, the other day.”

Steve closes his eyes.It was so stupid of him to say anything, but he’s never been fully in control of his mouth in emotional moments. 

“We all have flaws,” he counsels, hoping to God Oskar is being genuine.“The Lord knows this.We are imperfect.Grace is found in trying to live by His example in spite of it.”

He knows he’s said the right thing when he hears the hitch in breath and a soft sob on the other side of the screen. 

“They are watching you, Father,” he says through his tears.“Through me.They are waiting for a reason to send you to Dachau.”

So one of these death camps has a name.Steve should be afraid.Instead, he turns to steel.

“Will you give them one?” Steve asks, point blank, feeling for all the world like he’s channeling Père Govinden.

“No,” the other man says vehemently, in a strange begging tone.“No, but…they know someone helped the Jews escape.And then they saw you at the rabbi’s.”

“Where,” and Steve has to keep himself from _growling,_ the remembrance of the empty house clawing open the grief again, “did they take them?”

“I don’t know.After Drancy, I don’t…” he laughs to himself a little, hollow, like he’s losing his mind. “It’s not like you can get them back.” 

“Find out where they are,” Steve commands.“That is your penance.”

Oskar breathes.This is the telling moment; there’s a big difference between being vocally contrite and acting upon it.Especially given the nature of the task and its implications.

“Okay,” he breathes, shaky but energized.“I’ll do it.I’ll find out where they are.”

“Oskar.”

Steve can just see the outline of him when he lifts his head.

“Yes?”

“Atonement is a path, not a leap.”

Oskar nods, body language chastened.“Yes, Père Étienne.”

“I absolve you from your sin, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.”This is the first time he’s actually meant it, and he’s pretty sure the other man knows it.

“His mercy endures forever.”

 

 

Compiègne is the answer.Steve doesn’t know how Oskar figured it out, and he doesn’t care.What he does care about is the way Laure is looking at him - like he’s off his rocker.

“And what are we to do with this information?” she asks.God, she’s so thin, and food isn’t even scarce yet.

“What do you mean, _what do we do_?We get them out!There’s got to be enough manpower, enough guns—”

He stops short when she laughs at him.

“You are so American sometimes.”The way she says it, it’s an insult.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” he replies, trying for patience and ending up somewhere in the realm of teeth-grinding irritation.

“God’s chosen, charging in, thinking you can save everyone,” she scoffs.“I thought you learned your lesson in the trenches.”

“My father _died_ in those trenches, same as yours,” he snaps.

Laure blinks at him.  He doesn't talk about himself; no one here knows.  She takes out a cigarette, as wrong-footed as she'll ever get, but Steve isn’t feeling particularly indulgent.He puts his hand over hers.

She glares at him.  “Where are you now, hm?”

His irritation flags.It isn’t about him, this anger.It’s about his home, the American people, laying their heads down on their pillows every night in a place with no war.No war Laure would understand, anyway.

“We can’t risk the whole Resistance for forty people,” she spits.“It’s bigger than that.”

“Those forty people are our neighbors.”

“And the people you want to send to Compiègne to die?They aren’t?”

He sighs, turns away.He knows she’s right, but he doesn’t have to like it.

 

 

18 Juillet comes and goes, and there is no transport.

All he can do is scavenge discarded potatoes and onion roots and anything else the Germans carelessly toss out in their rubbish, and hope he can grow enough before the ground freezes.He refuses to be ashamed that he’s back to this, to pulling scraps out of someone’s garbage for sustenance.The situation couldn’t be more different.And this time, the stakes are higher.It’s not just his own life he’s scrounging for.

 

 

Steve doesn’t even have to assign penance to Oskar anymore.He just does it, barely waiting until the confessional door is closed to start talking; it’s two years’ worth of guilt tumbling out.It’s helpful, but there are limits to what he knows and what he can find out without arousing suspicion.He’s just a soldier.

“Père?” he asks, prodding Steve out of his thoughts.He’s been eating less so his guests can have more, and he’d forgotten how hunger made it hard to concentrate.

“Yes,” he says.“I’m sorry.”

“I was…I was just asking what you think will happen if Russia falls.”

_God forbid_.Steve thinks of the old Russian woman back home in Brooklyn who would sometimes slip him a bit of food if he looked pathetic enough, though she barely had anything herself.The sheer number of people like her who would suffer - who are _already suffering_ \- is unthinkable. 

Stalin isn’t a good man.He’s committed as many atrocities as Hitler.His regime makes Steve (and most of the world) uneasy.But for such a titan to fall, only to be replaced with someone worse…

Steve’s silence says everything.

 

 

Not long after that, Oskar starts slipping him extra ration cards.Steve doesn’t know how he knows, or if he’s courting disaster by accepting them, but what can he do?He gives them to Laure, who for all her bad habits is incredibly smart and will know what to do.

People bring things with them to church.Small packages; oats, flour, corn meal, compact enough to be concealed in a purse or pocket.He knows people take things for themselves, because what he gets back isn’t what he gave out, but he doesn’t grudge people that.They have mouths to feed, too.

 

 

It starts around nightfall, a low dull ache.With it comes a building anxiety that makes James want to crawl out of his skin.He needs to feed but he’s in the middle of _nowhere_.

He made the decision, once he crossed into France, to go through the northern territory rather than the direct route to Spain, because that was where his food source would be.In Germany it was like a buffet.It remained that way for a time, through Alsace, the Ardennes, the outskirts of Paris.But now he’s veering away from places of importance, so their presence is much reduced.There’s not a Nazi to be found.

He’s loathe to partake in a local; they’ve got enough misery in their lives without him.He won’t go hungry, though.He can’t.He already feels like he’s on the edge of a breakdown.The dam that holds back the worst of his memories is rickety, half-rotten, and James never wants to become that broken creature driven solely by hunger again.

The map says he’s close to a town.In a few kilometers, he’ll have to choose someone there.Someone old, maybe, who’d lived their life, or someone bad.There’s always at least one of each.

In another thirty minutes of walking, the trees grow scraggly and he can see a building up ahead.Of all things, it’s a church.There’s a garden at the edge of the woods, well kept, bountiful.It’s not what he’s hungry for, but he makes a note to come back later for a tomato.They look incredible.

James melts back into the tree line when there’s a sudden squeal, heart rabbiting in his chest.After a second he realizes it’s only a door.A large, heavy one on old hinges in want of oiling.As a church door might be.

And then - he can hardly believe his luck.A man in a familiar uniform steps out.He pauses to adjust his shirt and fit his hat snugly over his blond hair.They’ve stolen the church, then, probably sent the priest away to a prison.He saw a lot of that in Poland.

The Nazi steps down and starts to walk in the direction of a sprinkling of lights that must be the town of Champsecret.Even the wind is complicit, a breeze wafting his scent in encouragement.Very little rot here.Only a hint, like fruit just starting to turn.It’s too easy, and it’ll be a less odious meal than the last few.

James slips out from the shelter of the trees, ready to strike.

 

 

Steve is about to go down to the cellar with a bowl of blueberries he harvested that afternoon when a scream pierces the stony silence of the church.He jumps, bobbles the bowl, manages to set it down on a pew with only a few berries dropped, and then lurches for the door.He grabs a knife and a torch and he’s out the door before he even registers what he’s doing.

There are only four options for who could be screaming outside his church.One, Oskar.Two, Laure, if for some reason she had a need to come see him so late.Three, one of his guests, unable to stand being trapped inside anymore.Or four, _un étranger_.As he thinks it, a gun goes off, startlingly close and loud.

Steve runs.

He doesn’t have to go far.It’s Oskar on his backside in high grass, trying to scramble away and fire at another man at the same time.Steve sees the flash of the muzzle as he pulls the trigger again, a sharp crack following a second behind.He misses; the attacker isn’t fazed.One more shot and Oskar’s gun clicks.He’s empty.

At least Steve won’t have to worry about accidentally getting shot when he gets between Oskar and his attacker.He does just that a second later, torch up, shouting, “ _Fiche le camp_!” in his most authoritative voice.Then his mouth goes dry, because the undulating torch light bathes the assailant and…

He knows, instantly, that it’s one of _them_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Merci - thank you  
> Zeige dich! - Show yourself!  
> Keine Angst. Du wirst alles sehen. - Don't be afraid. You will see everything.  
> 18 Juillet, transport sud - 18th of July, transport south.  
> un étranger - a stranger  
> Fiche le camp! - idiomatic/slang expression that basically equates to 'bugger off!' or 'get away!' Less rude version of fous le camp (fuck off, get the fuck away). This concludes your French profanity lesson for the day XD


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Lots of meaty Steve and Bucky interaction in this one...
> 
> There's a very brief hint of dub-con in this chapter, NOT between Steve and Bucky. Warning in the end note. I'll always warn for this kind of content via an asterisk* at the start of the section.

James makes to lunge, but one step forward and he can feel the heat of the fire and it _burns,_ lashing his skin with a warning pain.He stops, eyes scouring the man between him and his dinner.

A priest.It’s _always_ the priests.He doesn’t know how they know; it must be something they pass along to their apprentices, whispered in darkness.It isn’t in any holy book he ever read.He’s read a fair few by now.

They haven’t stolen this man’s church.

_Yet._

In his experience, the priests don’t like the Nazis any more than he does.Maybe this one was just responding to the scream.If that’s the case, he’s braver than most.He can afford to be brave; he’s tall, muscled…and, James realizes, very good looking.

“Are you one of them?” he asks.

The priest blinks at him, chest rising and falling with adrenaline James can smell.

“ _Quoi_?” he says.

It takes James a second to realize he’d asked his question in Romanian.The priest is easy on the eyes, to the point that it’s distracting him.The need cramps in his belly a second later, though, and he remembers that no one is attractive enough to cost him a meal.Nothing is worth that torment.

He says it again, in French this time.“ _Êtes-vous avec eux?”_

The priest risks a glance back at the other man, who’s frozen on the ground, cowering behind the holy man.He meets James’s eyes a moment later, very certain.

“ _Non.”_

“Step aside, Father, and I’ll solve your problem.”It had been that easy, a few times before.Maybe it would be again

“With murder?” the priest replies, sharp, fearless.

“Is it murder when a wolf kills a doe?” James asks, tongue running over his teeth.He’s more intrigued by the courage in this man’s eyes than he’d like to admit.

“Are you an animal or are you a man?”

James knows the answer to that.He thinks the priest does, too, even if he doesn’t want to believe it.

“Last chance,” he warns.

“I could say the same to you.”

James watches his hand shift on the handle of the torch, repositioning his grip.There’s intent there.This one will fight him, and if he gets lucky and that fire touches James, it’ll be worse than another hour of hunger.Even from this distance, the light and heat of the fire make him feel raw, sunburnt.He can’t risk it.

He holds up his hands.“Let’s not fight, _Père_.”James smiles.“I can wait.” 

Then he steps back into the shadows, letting them absorb him, and waits to see what the men will do.

 

 

Steve breathes in the darkness.He can feel the swish of his blood in his ears, a dull pulsating roar, and the whisper of leaves in the wind.The crickets are still silent.The vampire hasn’t gone.

Oskar is _literally_ hanging on to his pant leg.Steve resists the urge to roll his eyes; the man is terrified, and just because Steve never learned how to stay out of a fight doesn’t mean everyone’s that way.Given that Oskar fired six bullets at that creature and didn’t manage to hit him once, it may be in his best interest to continue avoiding fights.

“Is it…is it gone?” he asks, voice trembling.

“No,” Steve responds.He scans the area, but the torch is so close and so bright that he has no night vision.He knows it’s still out there, though.Waiting.He reaches his left hand back without looking at Oskar and beckons.“Get up.”

Oskar scrambles to his feet, still half-panicked.

“Your gun,” Steve says patiently.It’s laying in the grass.Empty, but not something Oskar should leave behind.Oskar crouches down to snatch it comically fast, as if the vampire will leap out and tear his arm off the second it leaves Steve’s little pool of light.For all they know, it might.Steve’s being too casual.This isn’t a back alley fight in Brooklyn.It’s a standoff with a predator, on the predator’s turf.They need to get inside.

“Follow me.Stay close.” 

He didn’t need to say it; Oskar is practically on top of him, hands fisted in the back of his shirt as they move back toward the church.It feels like miles.They make it unmolested, though, and Steve closes and locks the doors behind them.

Then he stands, mind turning over rapidly, processing.He didn’t think the front was this close.That was what Père Govinden said; the blood and death drew them.But did they need a front for that?In this war, he thinks not.

“What…what _was_ that?” Oskar asks.The ring on his right hand rattles against the wood of the pew as he shakes.It’s leftover adrenaline - Steve’s got a trace of a tremor himself - but the soldier is also genuinely frightened.

“What do you think it was?” he asks, trying to be calm for the other man’s sake.He’s not, not really.That _vampire_ wasn’t the monster he’d pictured.But for the red glow in his eyes and the elongated canines and nails, he looked just like a man. 

_Easy on the eyes, too,_ his unhelpful brain supplies.Of all the times.Steve grits his teeth.Someone once told him he liked danger a little too much, even insinuated that he got off on it, and there are times that he wonders.There is something to the sharpening of senses and rush of blood, something biological…that’s all this is.An old quickening he needs to leave behind. 

“He was trying to bite me,” Oskar exclaims, touching his neck.“Had to be…some crazy person.Right?”

Steve sighs.Will Oskar think _he’s_ a crazy person if Steve speaks the truth?It doesn’t matter.The vampires are like roaches, probably; where there’s one, there are many, even if you can’t see them.He needs to know how to protect himself and others.

Steve grapples with himself.A priest isn’t supposed to appreciate karma or pass judgment on others.That’s the Lord’s job.But some of these people are gleefully cruel and sinful, and what are these creatures, but pure manifestations of hell?

He reminds himself that even the worst are capable of redemption.It’s his duty to protect people with the knowledge he has.Even those who would not do the same for him.That has never sat well, but that’s why he’s here.He was less than nothing when the church took him; he was worthy in their eyes.He made a vow to look for worth in anyone, to believe it existed even if it wasn’t immediately visible.

“Oskar, sit down.”

 

 

 

Oskar stays the night, curled up on a pew with a stack of altar linens as a pillow.He’s awake for a long time, but eventually he falls asleep.Steve doesn’t sleep a wink. 

He wakes Oskar up before sunrise, certain that indulgence for the whims of occupying soldiers only goes so far in this German army.He sends him on his way with a torch and instructions to never, ever let that fire extinguish.The implication is clear; he shouldn’t go out alone at night, or if he does, he should have the fire with him.It’s up to Oskar to take care of himself from here. 

Steve can tell that Oskar hasn’t fully allowed himself to believe.He’s not sure why it’s any stranger to believe in vampires than it is to believe in God, but Steve’s done all he can do.There are others he needs to protect now. 

“ _Merci,_ Père Étienne,” he says, framed in the doorway of the church.“You are a brave man.”A smile crooks the left corner of his mouth.“But I think I already knew that.” 

_Don’t go spreading it around,_ he thinks, and nods.

 

 

 

The priest is smart.He has to give him that.

He kept the Nazi barricaded inside for the night, and sent him along in the morning with the fire in tow.James can’t touch him.It isn’t important now, though; he’s not hungry anymore.When it got too bad, watching and waiting and investigating the church for points of entry, he gave up and went into the town. He found another victim with ease.He doesn’t know why such a small town warrants so many Nazis, but it worked out for him.

He should have moved on after feeding.He needs to start turning south to cross into Spain.But more and more, he’s toyed with the idea of crossing over to England.It’s just the channel instead of an entire ocean; a day’s journey instead of the potential for weeks at sea.It’s definitely not as far away from the Nazis and Hydra as he’d like to be, but the British have held fast against them for this long.Maybe the trend will continue.

It’s risky; if England falls, it will be much more difficult to get out on a transatlantic boat than it would be from Portugal.But the idea of being trapped in the middle of the ocean with his thirst is _terrifying._ There will be other people on the boat, of course, but in a closed environment, his victims will be missed.If he’s caught it could be the end of him.Now more than ever, he’s keenly aware that he isn’t invulnerable.

It’s not a dilemma he can solve in a morning.He needs more time to think.Besides, he did promise himself one of those tomatoes, and if he’s honest, the priest has piqued his interest.He protected the Nazi, but there was no smell of rot on him.James doesn’t know what that means.Nor does he know what to make of the other scents he picked up in his investigation of the church.There are people in that basement, at least a half dozen of them.Are they captives…or guests?

_Don’t get involved, James_ , his brain warns him.But it’s too late, now.

 

 

 

Steve pushes through the day without sleep.Now that he’s actually seen one of the creatures, there are preparations to be made.He reinforces the doors and windows of the church - a good idea, anyway, because eventually there will be unrest.Then he brings breakfast down to his guests.Today he’ll have to tell them a tale and hope they believe him.

There are two families staying with him.One, a couple in their sixties, Beatrix and Alphonse, and the second, Daniel, his wife Judith, her sister Françoise, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Arianne.Arianne is, in fact, the hardest sell.

“We are not children,” she snaps.“You don’t have to use metaphors.”

Steve sighs.“I wish I was.” 

“He is talking about the estries, _mon cher_ ,” Daniel says.

“Estries?”

“Bloodsuckers,” Beatrix explains.“Succubi.”

_Or incubi._

Steve winces and rubs the bridge of his nose.He’s tired.But this is going much better than he thought it would.It would seem that these beings, _les sangsues_ , are more universal than he ever realized.

“Those are just stories,” Arianne scoffs.“Make-believe.”

“All myths have a kernel of truth,” Steve says.“And if such a creature were to exist, where do you think you’d find one?”

“Wherever there is blood,” she replies, haltingly, as it sinks in.

“And where is there more blood than in war?” Alphonse offers, with a soft laugh.It’s a virtual buffet. 

She isn’t completely won over yet; she looks at him sideways, critical.“You’ve seen one of these things?”

“Yes,” Steve nods.“Last night.But I was warned well before then by Père Govinden.”

Arianne looks at the people around her.They’re all trending toward thin, pale, just this side of stir-crazy.Even Steve.

“ _Maman_?” she asks.God, he remembers a time like that, when his mother’s word was all he needed.It claws at a hollow place inside him.

Judith nods, expression tight.She glances at her sister; Françoise is staring at the floor, lips pursed.A moment later, she lifts her head and speaks.

“Your uncle, when he came back from the trenches…he used to talk of creatures with red eyes.Some would only feed on the dying, but others would try for the living men.He was afraid to sleep.”

Her husband, Arianne’s uncle, has been missing since the invasion.Dead, or in a labor camp.They may never know.Arianne goes silent after that.

 

 

 

Just one more thing before he can sleep.He’s dead on his feet but it’s late summer and he can’t leave produce to rot on the vine or be nibbled by animals.Every bit of food counts.

Steve goes out to the garden.It’s hot today; he shucks off his black jacket and collar and loosens the white shirt beneath.He thinks God will forgive him for not being perfectly presentable.

It’s comforting to work his way through the garden.Takes his mind off everything else.He’s so absorbed in what he’s doing that it takes a comically long time for him to notice the man among his tomato plants.When he does, he just stops and stares, mouth open.

There’s a _vampire_ in his garden, standing there, smirking at him, a half-eaten tomato in his hand. 

“I need that!” he says indignantly, when his brain kicks back into gear.Though not fully, because he should turn and run.He thought they were safe in the daylight, _mais non._ But really - the gall!

“For what?” he returns.“Your prisoners?”

“Oh, _tais-toi,”_ Steve grumbles, because he is too tired to have a sense of self-preservation.If this vampire wanted to eat him, he probably would have done it by now, instead of waiting for Steve to notice him.It’s his luck to have to deal with a curious demon.

“Then what are the people in your basement, if not prisoners?” 

“Keep your voice down!” he hisses.

“Do your tomatoes have ears?”

“And eyes, and fangs, today,” Steve returns, with a pointed glare.Lord help him, he’s sassing a vampire and he can’t stop.But what of it?He has no fire with him.He’s at the creature’s mercy.

 

 

 

The priest - _wow_.

He shucks his jacket and undoes the top buttons of his crisp white shirt, and when he starts to sweat it clings, and…

_Wow._

James just watches him at first, savoring the tomato he’d promised himself.It’s good.The priest knows what he’s doing.That’s obvious as he plucks, prunes, waters, and generally fusses over the plants.It relaxes him.He’s a serious man, this one, but the greenery smoothes the strain from his face.And that just makes it more beautiful. 

_Leave, James, leave.You don’t have time for this._

But it’s like there’s a magnet pulling him to this man.And he’s… _delightful_.Outspoken, unafraid, sharply sarcastic.He talks to James like he’s a person.A person of whom he _expects better_.It’s been a long time.

James lowers his voice.“You’re hiding them from the Nazis.”

He says nothing.Just sets his mouth in a grim line and carries on harvesting tomatoes.

“You don’t like them,” he presses.“Why did you protect that one last night?”

“What does it matter to you?” he snaps.“You’re just here for the food.”He’s dismissive, and that rankles in a way that fires James right up.

“You don’t know anything about me,” he says through his teeth.

“I know what you are.What you do, unrepentantly.”His blue eyes flash up, and they’re hard.“You may not have gotten my visitor, but I'm sure you found someone else.”

James gestures at the basket full of produce, unsure why he feels a need to defend himself to this mortal.“You have to eat.I have to eat.At least I eat the bad ones.”

The priest doesn’t give an inch.“Still murder.” 

Rage flares wicked in his chest.This man is under his skin.Yes, he kills, but he’s always kept it predator and prey, tried his best to do it fast so they didn’t even know what was happening.It was never personal, never malicious.But Hydra made him into an assassin.By their manipulation - their _torture_ \- he killed without mercy.Men, women, children.Dozens.And that was still NOTHING compared to what they were doing.He heard Zola and Schmidt talking about it sometimes, offhandedly, as if they were above it. 

_(The Fuhrer focuses on the wrong things!This fixation on removing the Jews is a child’s errand.His feeble mind cannot grasp the possiblities, Arnim!)_

He steps out of the tomato vines, menace in every line of his body. 

“Do you know how many people _they’re_ murdering?” James growls, blood rushing in his ears.He wants to shout: _Do you know what they did to me?!_

“I know exactly how many people they’re murdering.”

“And still you defend them!”

 

 

 

 

 

He’s losing control of his temper.Steve knows this, and tries to reel it in.It’s just…the being across from him is so casual with his own killing and so righteously enraged at that of others.It’s hypocritical and he’s never had any patience for hypocrisy.Nor has he ever been able to abide such carelessness when it comes to human life.It reminds him too strongly of being looked at as a commodity, or worse, being looked _past_ like he didn’t exist at all.

Worse yet is the fact that Steve doesn’t completely disagree with him.Oskar is good, or at least he’s trying to do good things, but he still wears that uniform and follows orders.What he does with information and ration cards won’t stop him from looking away and doing nothing as people are carted off to death.Steve’s had to remind himself that reckless martyrdom isn’t always useful about ten times already.Oskar can do far less dead than he can alive under the Party’s thumb.The pragmatic part of him understands that, but the moral one struggles.

*And who is he to judge?  No matter what garments he wears now, he's still a person who once fellated a cop to get out of jail without a fine.He knows the guy was a creep who took advantage of the situation, but he still went along with it.  In the worst of times, it has to be about survival. 

“Do you really think there can’t be one good man among them?” he asks.

The vampire’s face changes; something raw and pained blooms there.

“I haven’t met one.”

In a rush, Steve understands.He’s been hurt by them, lost someone or something.It’s personal.

It takes some of the anger out of him.The vampire has enough of a conscience to abhor the Third Reich and their actions, even if it is for selfish reasons.He isn’t anywhere near as enlightened about his own behaviors.Still, it’s a start.

Steve weighs his options.He hasn’t forgotten what Père Govinden said that night. _They spin words like spiders build webs.Beautiful, but always made to trap you._ He can’t let too much slip about Oskar or the Resistance.Still, there’s one thing he must ask.

“Please don’t harm my guests,” he beseeches.“I can’t stop you from doing anything else, but please, please, leave them be.”

“I only eat Nazis,” the vampire growls, baring his teeth.“And priests who ask too many questions.”

 

 

 

The priest _smiles_.Not expansively, but there’s a definite twisted mirth there.

It absolutely wasn’t a joke.

James simultaneously loathes him, is intrigued by him, and wants to fuck him.No good can come of this.He needs to just go, move on to wherever he decides to end up, because lingering here serves no purpose. 

He plucks another tomato out of spite, and it has the desired effect; it erases that smile from the blond’s face.He turns to leave.

“I’m sorry,” the priest says with hard-fought patience, stopping him in his tracks, “for whatever they did.I’ll pray for you.” 

It takes everything he has not to crush the tomato in his hand.

“Don’t bother.”

 

 

 

 

He finally sleeps, but there’s no rest.The bloodsucker is in his dreams.

It’s no wonder.Those lips, those eyes.The long dark hair.He’s always had a problem resisting brunet(te)s.

Steve wakes up halfway, lost in a dream where sharp canines trail light and dangerous down his chest and belly.He doesn’t realize his own hands are moving.In the ether he can’t tell the difference between the vampire’s mouth and the circle of his fist around his leaking cock, nor can he remember why any of it should matter.

He comes hard, whimpering, reaching for dark hair that would be like silk under his fingertips.There’s only his sheet.It’s rough, nothing like a person’s skin or hair.And it’s wet.

As the orgasm fades into a dull buzz of pleasure, he wakes up enough to realize what he’s done.He sits up and fights the urge to cry.Why can’t it ever go away completely?Sometimes he can go months without any sign of this aberrance, but it always comes back.Always.And now he’s dreaming about some _monster_.

He bites his knuckles to keep in a scream of frustration.He prays so much for this, for God to take it away from him.What more can he do?He tries to live by the Lord’s Word and to instill it in others.He’s given so much.When will it be enough?

But that thought is pride talking, and he knows it.God doesn’t owe him anything.There’s more he can give, more he _should_ give.Steve drags himself from the mattress, pulling the top sheet with him.He’ll wash it in the morning.He can sleep on the floor when he’s done with the discipline.He doesn’t deserve comfort.

For the first time, he lays stripes down across the tender flesh of his inner thighs, close to where they meet his pelvis and the soft, vulnerable flesh of his testicles.It hurts so badly that he can’t go on.He lays folded over himself for a long time, willing the wave of pain to obliterate his unclean urges forever.

 

 

 

It hurts to walk the next day, and squatting in the garden is agony.

That night, there are no dreams.Just sleep.

 

 

 

Oh, he knows he has to leave, but he _can’t_.Something holds him in place.Some unknown need or emotion or…he has no idea.But he can’t leave this small town just yet.

He watches the one the priest protected.He’s wary now, eyes always searching.He doesn’t go out at night if he can help it.When he does, he always has a candle with him.James is willing to bet it’s the kind of fire that could end him.

This one doesn’t go out of his way to be cruel.Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean much.There were people in that facility, wherever Hydra held him, who never laid a finger on him…but they watched him suffer with no recognition that he was a living, feeling thing.Sometimes doing nothing is its own form of villainy.

 

 

 

It’s Alain who hangs back at church that Sunday.Laure is nowhere to be found.It sets Steve’s nerves on edge.If they took her…

“ _Elle est malade_ ,” Alain says, low.

“ _C’est grave_?”

He shrugs, a look on his face that’s worried and perturbed at the same time.“ _Elle ne mange pas, sauf les cigarettes_.”

He could have guessed.He can also guess that she’s giving all her actual food to her children, or saving it for when things get lean.“ _Les enfants_ ,” he says softly.

Alain sighs.“ _Je sais, je sais._ ”He appraises Steve.“ _Tu es mince, aussi_.”

Everyone else is gone by now, so Steve beckons him back through the church to the garden.He can spare a little for Laure.It isn’t much, just a purificator full of early potatoes and spinach and a handful of cherry tomatoes he’d missed through the thick foliage that would be past their prime in another day. 

“ _Transport sud_?” Steve asks as he ties the cloth up around his offering.

Alain shakes his head.That’s been the answer every Sunday.“ _Aucun mot du monastère_?”

It’s Steve’s turn to shake his head.He hasn’t heard back from the monastery in weeks.They’re stuck.There’s no way out for his guests.They’re here through spring, at least.He hands the bundle to Alain and says, “ _Alors je vais mincir_.”

 

 

 

The air is different tonight.

As he approaches the town, it’s too still.Too quiet.No one is out.Homes are shuttered and curtains drawn.Even the bar is locked up tight.James frowns to himself.

He came to scout.He’ll be thirsty soon; another day, two at most.He’s tempted to go for the one who evaded him courtesy of the priest, but he’s reached the conclusion that there are far worse specimens here.One of them will have to do.

But there’s nobody out, and it’s…

A sudden fear flashes through him.Had they…had they killed the entire town?They couldn’t have, there’s no way, he was just skirting the edges of town last night and everything seemed normal.And when he puts his nose to the wind, the scents are there; people, alive, inside their homes.They’re just…

Something’s spooked them. 

He takes the darkest route toward the center of town.The small main square is empty, but for two soldiers with menacingly large guns, and a body.

He can smell the blood.It’s only a few hours old, drying into the cobblestones and the cracks between.All he can pick up is the clean iron tang of a normal, healthy person.This wasn’t a bad man. 

The flies have already set in.The rats and carrion birds will be next.Why are they just leaving the body there to rot in the summer heat?He looks again at the two armed soldiers.They’re guarding the body.

It dawns on him then that it’s punishment.They’re purposely keeping the townspeople from collecting the body.Denying a proper burial.It must have been someone who set a toe out of line, or got caught doing something the Germans didn’t like.They executed him with an audience and now the entire town has to watch - and _smell_ \- his body as it decomposes.

What the _fuck._ He thought he couldn’t hate them more, but he was wrong.

It occurs to him that this is what they’ll do to the priest if they find out about his boarders.Maybe worse.He exhales and wrestles with that obscure feeling that’s been nagging at him all week.As he sits and breathes the waft of blood and decay from the body in the square, it starts to make sense at last.

His mind keeps drifting back to the priest because _he’s_ _doing something_.He’s mortal, and not terribly strong or special, but he’s fighting back.He’s doing what he can to stop the Nazis and protect his little corner of the world. 

_What are you doing, James?_

Running away.

Every argument he makes to himself sounds flimsy.Maybe at one time it wasn’t his war, but it became his the minute they captured him.He’s just one person and he knows he can’t stop the big machine, but nothing will stop if he runs, either.They might already have another strigoi.For all he knows, they’re building an army of his people, starving them into into submission.Meanwhile, he picks off one or two Nazis while he makes his way to greener pastures and thinks it’s somehow helping.Is it naive to believe there’s a place they can’t reach?What happens when they make it there, too? 

His people, on a whole, keep to themselves.There are small communities here and there, but no real organization or particular feel of unity.However, there are times when they’ll come together to fight for kin or country.If he, the first victim of Reich’s experiment in enslavement of his kind, turns tail and runs…how will they know?Who will warn them?

If nothing else, he has a responsibility to do that.He backs away from the square, hugging the shadows.Dimly, he’s aware that his feet are taking him back toward the church.He doesn’t fight it.He’ll be able to think better there, with the cover of the woods, and…

They need protection - all the people in that church.God won’t do it, no matter what the priest believes.  Not for the first time, James thinks that God must be asleep at the switch, if He exists at all.

 

 

 

He expected it to be quiet here like in the village, but there’s a light in the window and the priest is sitting on the steps of the church.There’s a candle with him, though it looks to have burnt out some time ago.He’s just staring into nothingness.

Something makes him approach.He’s noisy on purpose, so the priest will know he’s coming.Sure enough, his head snaps up and he rises from the steps. 

“ _You_ ,” he says, low and furious.His arm draws back and - is he _throwing something_?

The answer is a resounding yes.The metal arm jerks up and he catches the projectile with a clang.For a second he can only stare at the bottle that would’ve beaned him in the face.It’s empty, but once held red wine by the smell of it.It can only have been the priest who did the emptying.

He’s got an arm on him, this one, to go with his mouth.James drops the bottle because he’s advancing now, rage written on every inch of his body.

“How _dare_ you,” he seethes.He’s right up in James’s face, and his finger digs hard into James’s chest as he points.“All of this is because of you!”

He’s so stunned at the blond’s complete lack of fear and the proximity that all he can manage is, “What?”

“ _You_ killed him, _you_ murdered that Nazi!Did you even — for one _second_ —!”His hands fist into the front of James’s shirt, and the edge of anger is wavering into something else.“They rounded us up like cattle.Stood us in the square, guns on us.Someone in this town has killed a soldier, they said, now come forward and confess or else.And before I could, before _anyone_ could, they just—”

He tightens up again, wound taut with fury and pain and helplessness.James feels sick.

“They shot him,” he growls.“Pulled him out of the line randomly and shot him.In front of his wife and his children and his friends.”They’re almost nose to nose now, close enough to kiss.“Did you think you could kill them and nothing would happen?Actions have consequences!But you’re not here to suffer them, are you?Just us. _Just us_.”

Oh, God.Of course they would blame the townspeople, of course.It only made sense to make an example of someone to scare them into obedience.Nausea slams him alongside a vertiginous guilt.What if this had been happening _everywhere_?What if, in every little place he passed through, draining Nazis dry and not bothering to hide their corpses, someone had borne the brunt of the wrath meant for him?

He can’t think of a single thing to say.He’s choked by the reminder of what Hydra made him, what he is still.His silence just seems to make the priest angrier.He pulls back and James doesn’t even try to duck his fist.

It connects with his cheek hard, sparking lights in his skull, making him bite his own tongue.Blood wells in his mouth and he wants to vomit.He lets the momentum of the hit take him down to the ground.The priest falls to his knees beside him with the force of his follow-through.For long moments they just breathe, James tasting blood, the priest with tears running into his mouth.

When he can finally move, the priest stays where he is.He’s got nothing left.James knows that feeling.It was the first week after escaping Hydra, the emotional disarray, the rotgut cocktail of fear and guilt and _where do I go from here_.No one was there for him in that time.But he…he’s here now for the priest, though he’s sure the man would rather be alone.He can’t leave him out in the night, though.He knows what moves in the dark.And this one - he’s come to realize that humanity can’t spare him.

He drags the priest to his feet.He shows teeth but that’s the worst of it; he allows himself to be led back into the church.It always feels strange crossing this kind of threshold, but it’s pure hopeful fabrication that he’ll burst into flames in the house of God.Though tonight, James feels like he deserves that.

 

 

 

Steve wakes and his head is throbbing, but not unmanageably.It was a bad idea to go for the wine.He was so angry, though.So angry.

The rest of the night comes back to him in snippets.The vampire, words hissed with no sense at all.A loss of control he hadn’t experienced in years.Had he - had he _punched_ a vampire?God, what is wrong with him?He doesn’t matter, but someone has to be here to protect the people in his basement, and he can’t do that if he gets himself eaten.Why is he so stupid and selfish, still?

He squeezes his eyes shut.He focuses on something he learned very early on at the seminary; it’s simple and bracing.Today is a new day.A day in which he can do better.

*“Weeping may tarry for the night,” he tries to remind himself, “but joy comes with the morning.” _Even if it’s hard to find._

Steve turns over, ready to get up and face the day, and freezes.The vampire is there.In his room.Sitting in his desk chair.

“Who’s Alexander?” he asks without preamble. 

Steve’s mouth falls open.He feels gut-punched at the name alone and it probably shows on his face.He doesn’t remember dreaming, but oh, hell, had the vampire been here all night?

The brunet tilts his head.“You were dreaming.You didn’t seem to want him near you.”

“I don’t want you near me, either,” he breathes, shaken.

He uncrosses his arms and makes to stand up.“Then I’ll go.” 

And oh, sure, today’s a chance to do better but he learns slow, and maybe he’s not the one who needs to do better for once.Maybe God sat this abomination with feelings at his bedside all night for a reason.

“No,” Steve says, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and standing.He ignores the lurch of his stomach and his bladder.“You don’t get to just walk away.”

The vampire looks equal parts wary and unsurprised.His fingers twine together.His nails are like talons; they look like they could tear a man to shreds. 

_What is the matter with you, Steve Rogers, is this war making you lose your mind?_

Probably.

The vampire takes a deep, halting breath.

“Okay,” he says, eyes lifting to meet Steve’s.They’re blue now, and earnest, not like the red of the week before.“How do I fix it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dub-con warning: Steve briefly recalls a time when he gave a cop a blowjob in exchange for getting out of jail without a fine. Power imbalance, and not Steve's idea, but he goes along with it because he knows he can't afford the fine.
> 
>  
> 
> Estries - derived from Strix, a mythological bird of ill omen said to feed on human flesh/blood. Interestingly, it's a genus of owls. Estries are a Jewish folkloric variant of a vampire that can shapeshift and share many characteristics of succubi.
> 
>  
> 
> Translations:  
> Quoi? - what?  
> Êtes-vous avec eux? - Are you with them?  
> Non - no  
> Merci - thank you  
> mon cher - my dear  
> Maman - mom/mother  
> tais-toi - shut up  
> Elle est malade - she is sick  
> C'est grave? - is it serious?  
> Elle ne mange pas, sauf les cigarettes - she doesn't eat, except for cigarettes  
> Les enfants - the children  
> Je sais, je sais - I know, I know  
> Tu es mince, aussi - you are thin, too  
> Transport sud? - transport south?  
> Aucun mot du monastère? - No word from the monastery?  
> Alors je vais mincir - Then I will get thinner.
> 
> Psalm 30:5 - For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.


	5. Chapter 5

“You start by telling me your name,” Steve says.

“Iacob Bogdan Barnescu,” he blurts out.

Steve blinks.  That’s a name, all right.  “Say it again?”

“Just call me James.”

Fair enough.  “Étienne,” Steve rasps in return.  His mouth is like the damned Sahara.  He’s about to brush past the vampire -  _ James, his name is James _ \- when he realizes those talons he was eyeing earlier are only on one hand.  The other one is metal.

James notices his gaze and raises his left arm.  Steve can’t help it; he stares. It’s beautiful in a terrifying sort of way.

“They sawed my arm off,” James says flatly, “and replaced it with this.”

Abruptly, the admiration is gone.  Dear Lord. He’s heard that they experiment on people, so it shouldn’t surprise him, but it does.  He doesn’t think James is out for sympathy with his disclosure, but it’s hard-wired in Steve to recognize loss and the wounds it leaves behind.

He digs down deep past the anger and says, “I meant it the other day when I said I was sorry for whatever they did.”

James sighs and lets his arm drop.  “And I’m sorry about your friend.” He shakes his head.  “I thought I was helping.” 

“Murder doesn’t help anyone or anything.”

He sighs again, and it’s exasperated.  “Do you get angry at bears, too, when they eat salmon, or owls when they snatch up mice?”

“Those are animals.  They operate on instinct,” Steve grits out.  He really has to piss, but he’s not going to let this drop.

“You don’t know very much about my kind, do you.”

He looks James straight in the face.  “I know that God gave you a brain capable of reasoning and making choices, same as me, and that means you’re not just an animal.  If you wanted to find a way around killing, you would.”

  
  


Oh, this man is  _ self-righteous. _  He’s already regretting this.  He can feel his temper simmering, begging to be cranked up to a full boil.

“Do you,” he starts, consciously controlling the way his voice wants to tremble, “have _any_ idea what it’s like to be hungry?  Truly hungry?”

He’s not at all prepared for the way the priest looks at him.  His eyes are beautiful, and in the space of a second they hold more pain than he thought possible.

“Yes,” he replies softly.  “I do.”

  
  


It’s a stalemate of sorts after that.  The priest goes to do whatever it is priests do in the morning, and James goes outside to breathe air not trapped by stone and glass.  It helps.

It’s not quite noon when Étienne steps out the front door.  He’s fully dressed - it must be  _ suffocating _ in all that black - and his hair is neatly combed.  He moves with purpose. A mother-of-pearl rosary bounces against his chest with each step.

James falls into step beside him.  The blond gives him a sideways glance, but nothing more.

“Where are you going?” he asks, when he can’t stand the silence anymore.

“To bargain for the body.”

James stops, frowning.  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Étienne turns, hands in his pockets.  “It’s not, but it’s the right thing to do.”

Is he always this certain of himself?  Or this reckless? That’s putting it diplomatically; this is plain stupid, sticking his neck out, but clearly it’s a pattern.  

“What makes you think they won’t shoot you for asking?” James hedges.

“People don’t like to shoot priests, even if they aren’t Christians.”

“They shot plenty in Poland.”

His brow furrows at that.  He looks down at the ground for a long moment, fingers seeking the rosary.  Up close James can see that it’s old, the beads worn with the worry of years.  Either he’s had more heaped upon him than anyone ought to at his age, or it belonged to someone else before him.

Étienne takes a fortifying breath and starts walking again.  

“I have to try,” he says over his shoulder.

James looks up at the sky for patience, then snorts at himself.  He’ll get no help from there. After a minute, James follows the man in black, catching up with long strides.  He clears his throat.

“Tell me about him.”

For a second James thinks Étienne is going to ignore him, but then he sighs.

“His name was Matthieu.”

  
  
  


In another ten minutes he knows that Matthieu was a tailor, a widower with two children and a second wife of only eleven months.  Étienne had married them on a drizzly day at the end of summer the year before. Matthieu had been born with only two fingers on his left hand but it had never stopped him from anything save enlistment for the war, and that war caught up with him, anyway.

James bites the inside of his lip.  Étienne seems to think his death was random, but James isn’t so sure.  He’s heard them talk about  _ cleansing _ .  It’s not just the Jews.  It’s anyone they deem lesser.  A man with seven fingers could not be an übermensch.

It’s obvious that Étienne liked Matthieu.  And that the late tailor was more of an übermensch than anyone wearing a German uniform.  He doesn’t deserve this desecration.

Étienne gives him a look as they hit the outskirts.  “I don’t need a bodyguard.”

_ I’d believe that if you didn’t charge headfirst into every dangerous situation you see,  _ he thinks.  But he controls his mouth.  It won’t help the situation.  He’s known people like Étienne before, who only grow more determined to do something when told it’s a bad idea.  Not everyone comes into the world with a sense of self-preservation.

“Then what can I do?” James asks.

The priest considers him.  “If you really want to help,” he says, “go back to the church and start digging.”

He can hear what’s left unsaid, loud and clear: _ Someone's going to need that grave by day's end. _

James sighs and turns back.

  
  


He falls into a sort of trance as he digs. His shirt doesn't last long; it's hot.  He feels strange and exposed with his arm on display, and he’s risking a sunburn, but he can endure a little discomfort.  He feels the twin prickle of sweat and sun as he works. If he burns, so be it.

It’s been a long time since he did this kind of labor.  It feels good. Physical. Connected. There was a time when he had a job, a purpose, something more than _where is my next meal_ ; he didn’t realize how long he’d drifted.  

It’s the work of hours, but the grave takes shape.  He retreats to the shade of the woods when it’s done.  There, he sits and hopes that the idiot priest didn’t get himself killed.  As he waits, he can feel the faint ache of sunburn on his shoulders and his face, and fatigue in his bones.  He doesn’t need much sleep as a rule but his eyes grow heavy and he loses time in the cool green.

The sun is angling down when he finally catches a scent on the wind.  It’s Étienne...and death. He stands up so fast he almost falls back down; his left arm quests out to steady him on the tree trunk and he sighs with relief.  It’s Étienne and three others coming up the path to the church. They’re carrying a litter; one of the litter-bearers can’t be more than fifteen. It’s probably Matthieu’s son.  The wave of sickness rolls over him again.

Why had it never occurred to him that dead soldiers away from the front would arouse suspicion?  And that fault would have to fall on someone?

_ Because you were so caught up in yourself.  Because you let these people mean less to you.  Because you’ve forgotten that killing isn’t casual. _

They take the litter into the church.  An hour later they emerge. The body is wrapped in white linens, and it’s begun to bloat, distorting the shape of the man within.  Étienne walks to the edge of the forest and starts to gather the wildflowers that grow raucous there; his hands pluck meadowsweet and coneflowers and chicory and evening primrose.  James doesn’t realize he’s staring until Étienne looks up and catches his eyes. He looks tired, and sad, but also thankful, like he didn’t really expect to find a grave when he got back.  He turns away before James can say anything.

  
  


It’s much later when Étienne finally sits down for more than five seconds.  James isn’t sure if he’s eaten all day. He remembers their conversation from this morning about hunger;  _ was _ it a conversation, and was it really just this morning?

James offers a pocketful of wild raspberries he found in the woods.  Étienne looks at them for a long moment, bemused. Then he reaches out to gather a few.  There’s a blister on his hand in the same spot as James’s; he moved the dirt out, but Étienne shoveled it back after the funeral.

“How did you convince them?” James asks when they’ve finished the raspberries, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

“I didn’t,” he answers softly.  “The commandant’s mistress fainted at the sight of the body.  We have her delicate constitution to thank.”

James huffs a dark laugh.  There’s a silence after that.  Étienne closes his eyes, and James thinks he’s going to doze off right there, but then he takes a deep breath through his nose and sits up straight.

“Thank you,” he says.  “I didn’t expect you to actually…”  He tilts his head, blue eyes thoughtful, like he’s seeing James for the first time.  “You’re sunburnt.”

He is, on his shoulders, upper back, and across his nose and cheeks.  It’s a low, persistent throb. Nothing he can’t handle.

“It happens.”

“I thought vampires couldn't go out in the sun.”

James shrugs.  “My kind can.”

“Your kind?”  He sounds genuinely curious, and James has asked him enough questions that he can answer one or two.

“Strigoi.”

He makes a face, and tries to repeat it. It sounds ridiculous in his French accent.  But there's a hint of something else underneath it, something decidedly not French. Interesting.  James finds himself smiling as he says, “It's Romanian.”

“That's where you're from?”

He nods.  “Where are you from?”

He doesn't miss the way his shoulders rise a fraction, as if protecting himself.

“Amiens,” the priest says.

He's lying.

  
  


It's later still when James prepares himself to go spend the night in the woods.  He thought Étienne was already asleep, but he materializes, too quiet and stealthy for someone who's never had to go unseen.  He leans in a stone doorway, arms crossed.

“You didn't have to hide today.”

Oh, how little he understands.

“People aren't usually as...tolerant as you.”  And that is the truth; he's run from a few mobs in his time.  “And the fewer people who see this arm, the better.”

His brow creases again, and it's already a familiar expression. It's wearing a line between his eyes.

“You think they're looking for you?”

“There's a good chance.”

Étienne is quiet for a long time, thinking.

“There's plenty of room at the inn,” he says at last, “provided you don't eat any of the other occupants.”

James can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes.  Leave it to him to find the prettiest, kindest, preachiest idiot in France.

“I mean that.”

“I  _ know _ ,” he bites off.  If he stays, he has no idea what he’ll do in a day or two, when the thirst really hits.  But nobody is going to think to look for him in a church, and he can be useful here. It's the perfect hiding place.  “Where should I…”

“You don't want the belfry?” Étienne asks, straight-faced but clearly mocking.

What an absolute shit. James curses at him in Romanian and stalks off.

  
  


He curses him some more when he realizes that he does feel safer up high.  It’s not the belfry, at least. There’s a walkway around the sloped surface of the apse, accessible by a small pull-down ladder; he can see everything from there.  That’s where he makes his bed.

With some poking around, he finds a stash of art supplies in a box.  Watercolors, and some pencils and bits of charcoal. He knows he shouldn’t, but he opens up the folio that’s tucked neatly against the wall next to the box.  The first few drawings are shaky, tentative, but the skill is there. They get better and better as he flips through. His breath catches at a portrait of a woman with sharp blue eyes and a proud but gentle bearing.  She’s thin and pale, tired but not defeated. He’d bet money that it's Étienne’s mother.

As he nears the end, there are sketches of cityscapes, tenement houses and bridges.  There’s as much love in these lines as there is in the drawing of his mother. Wherever this is, it’s home.  He can conclude with some certainty that it’s _not_ Amiens, since he passed through there less than a month ago and didn't see anything like this.

Why does Étienne hide this away?  He's never known a priest to have so many secrets, but then again...he's never known a priest.  His family wasn't  _ this.   _ He barely remembers religion.  Superstition, yes, but not this.

  
  


The next day is Sunday.  Étienne doesn’t need to tell him to stay out of the way.  He lays on his back up in his roost and listens.

The priest speaks of grief, of loss and injustice, and of the importance of picking yourself up and going on in the footsteps of God.  Having pity for tormentors instead of bitterness and hatred as these only ruin  _ you _ .  But pity is not the same as acceptance, nor does it have to be passive.  In no uncertain terms, Étienne is telling them to fight back. Whenever, however they can, without becoming the same kinds of monsters as their occupiers. 

James sighs, closing his eyes as the people below sing their hymns.  The voices are strong. The music is hopeful and perseverant. He thinks of what he knows of Christianity - once a religion punishable by death, practiced at great personal risk - and understands its refuge.  And that Étienne’s words are as much for him as they are for everyone else.

For however many secrets he has, this man is the real thing.

  
  
  


It’s that night that the thirst comes.  He feels it thrumming in his body, pulsing with his heartbeat.  It’s not urgent, not yet, but by morning…

He has to get out.  He can’t kill anyone here.  He won’t put anyone else in this town in danger, nor the people of any other town.  That means he has to go to the front. It’s too far away, though; he won’t make it there in a day.  He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but he won’t find any solutions here.

Something makes him go to Étienne’s room.  He’s slow to open the door.

“Everything all right?” he asks.  His face is strained. The top three buttons of his shirt are undone, and the rosary hangs there, against the perfect, smooth vee of skin.  James can see his collarbone and he wants to close his teeth around it. 

“Yes...”

_ No. _

“I…”

_ Can smell you. _

Oh, yes he can.  Sweat and musk and  _ blood _ .  He smells incredible.

Étienne is perceptive, and he senses the shift.  He steps back. He doesn’t reach for the candle, but it’s close at hand.  He just watches James; unflinching, but not stupid.

What kind of monsters has he faced, that he’s so calm in the presence of a real one?

“What…” James forces out, around the irrational stab of anger that follows that thought, “what’s next?”

Étienne’s eyes skirt over him, searching.  He knows, of course. He knows it’s an excuse to get away, to hunt.  Nothing gets past this man. But it hurts, it hurts so bad, and everything always comes back when he’s thirsty.  The table, the cold eyes, the searing pain in his arm, the frenzy of bloodlust. The thirty precious seconds after feeding that reminded him who he was and what they were making him do.  The  _ helplessness. _

_ Please don’t lecture me.  Not now. _

Étienne touches the rosary, thumb brushing a well-worn groove along the crucifix.  James’s eyes follow the gesture, and something visceral and unfamiliar inside him wishes that thumb was tracing the dip in his chin.  He smells so fucking  _ good _ .

“People were taken from this town,” he says, low, wounded.  “They were sent to a camp in Compiègne. Look for them.  _ Free  _ them.”

“And the others?”

“Free them all.”

James nods.  He can do that.  He can free people from the kind of captivity he suffered.  They may not all make it far, but some of them will escape the Nazis forever.  That’s worth it.

In a gesture of trust James doesn’t deserve, Étienne turns to his desk.  That’s when he sees it; a thin slash of red across his broad back. Blood soaked into the white shirt.  He weathers a very real urge to push him down over the desk, slice that shirt from his body, and run his tongue over whatever cut he finds.  His mind unhelpfully supplies the image and he feels his cock stir. This man makes him crave in more ways than one.

Étienne turns back and holds out a list.  Names.

“These are the ones,” he says softly.  “But they’re all important.”

 

Even outside he can’t  _ breathe _ .  The need has ballooned into near-madness.  He hoped to make it closer to Compiègne, but it’s not in the cards.  If he wants to retain any sort of control over who he kills, he has to do it soon.

War breeds monsters, but they’re always there, really, and he’s reminded of that when he comes across a farmhouse.  Behind the blackout curtains there are raised voices and shattering glass and a woman’s scream. He lets himself in the front door.  No lock is much of a match for the metal arm.

When it’s done he looks at the woman.  She’s huddled against the wall, eyes wide in terror.  Her face is bruised and her neck red where the man had been choking her.

“Listen,” he says, even though he knows the poor thing is scared out of her mind.  “I’m taking him outside. You tell them it was wolves. Do you understand?”

Slowly, through her hiccups, she nods.

  
  


With his nails and teeth, he makes it  _ look _ like it was wolves.  It’s not difficult. James sighs.  This man tastes like shit.

_ Not like Étienne would’ve. _

And that...that he just can’t allow himself to think about.

  
  


The woman is standing on the porch with a toddler on her hip when he leaves.  She’s not crying anymore. Maybe this time he actually did help someone. 

Still, he’s not going to breathe a word of this to the priest.

  
  
  
  


He stops to rest the next night.  He’s almost to Compiègne. A patch of forest beckons him, and James curls up in the shelter of a massive tree.  He wants to sleep, but his mind won’t let him.

Now that he’s settled, without the need to feed lacerating his every nerve, he can think.  He can think about the fact that Étienne smelled like blood because he was bleeding. He was hurt.  Had they beaten him when he went to beg for Matthieu’s body?

The idea of it makes him unreasonably angry.  So does the knowledge of his own reaction. If he didn’t have control of himself, he could have killed him.  Or worse, because  _ fuck _ , he wanted him in that moment.  Wanted to bend him over that desk and--

He still wants it.  His dick has sprung to attention.  Desire pounds along his skin with enough intensity that he can’t stop himself.  He slides his hand down and curls it around his erection. It’s hot and silky and the first pulls of his fist have him pressing his head back and shivering.

James lets his mind go, because he knows he’ll only ever have this in fantasy.  Behind his eyes he can see Étienne’s lips wrapped around his cock, sucking him til he’s wet and gleaming.  He can feel the shift of his muscles as he pushes him down over the desk. The scalding, enveloping heat of his body.  He’d beg for it - no, demand it - and James would give it to him, fuck him so hard the shape of the rosary would be imprinted in his chest.

He gasps, feet digging for purchase as his hips punch the air, pushing his cock through the tight circle of his hand.  He’s so close. So close. All he has to think about is the passion that bubbles just below the surface. The flash of anger outside the church, the lines of nude bodies in his sketchbook that look more like a caress than a boundary, the sheer determination of that line between his eyes.  Étienne would make him  _ earn _ his pleasure.

Oh, God,  _ he wants to. _

He shakes his way through a long, messy orgasm, jaw clamped to keep from screaming. 

 

James has been gone two days when, in the course of the washing, Steve realizes why his pupils were so dilated that night, his mouth open, tongue teasing the edge of his teeth.  Of course he knew good intentions wouldn’t cure the vampire’s needs. It couldn’t be fixed all at once. Steve wanted him to do better, but he knew from his own experiences that you couldn’t simply go from Point A to Point Z.  There had to be other stops along the way.

He stares at the bloodstain.  It’s a thin, accusing slash, rusty brown across the back of the shirt.  He hadn’t meant drew blood that night. Steve’s no fool; he knows he can’t whip himself bloody with a vampire living under the same roof.  But sometimes...sometimes bruises aren’t enough. 

He can’t stop dreaming about James. He  _ wants  _ him.  He’s invited this monster, this allegory of temptation, into his walls, into his  _ mind _ , and he’s paying the price.  But if James can make it to Compiègne, he can do the things Steve and the Resistance can’t.  He can use his flaws and misfortunes for good. That’s all Steve has ever tried to do, and if he can drag another lost soul up out of the muck, he’ll suffer gladly.

Gladly, but more carefully, from now on.  He balls the white shirt up and tosses it into the fire.  Then he goes to make lunch for his guests.

  
  


It's another five days before James returns.  He catches him up in the apse, where he's rummaging for art supplies for Arianne.  Like any teenager, any  _ person _ , she's chafing against captivity, and he hopes the ability to express herself will help.

“Starting your next masterpiece?” the brunet asks. He's definitely looked through the folio.  Steve doesn't mind. It's only hidden because of the drawings of New York. He can't forget that he's not really a French citizen; the Nazis love to deport people.

“No masterpieces here,” he returns.  “It's for…” He trails off. Chews his lip.  He wants to trust him, and maybe that's his downfall.  But he’s kept his word so far. Steve bends down and gathers the rest of his supplies. 

“James,” he says, when he stands up, arms laden, “if they caught you, tortured you, would you tell them about me and my guests?”

He can see the shudder James suppresses.

“I...I wouldn't want to,” he answers at last.  His eyes are haunted.

Steve nods.  Maybe it makes him bad person to want to draw the queasy expression on his face.  It’s...humanizing.

James swallows and lifts his chin.  “If they caught you, tortured you...would you tell them about me?”

He doesn't know the whole of what James suffered at their hands. What he does know is enough to lend iron to his spine.

“No,” he says.  “I'd die first.”

  
  


That certainty makes what James has to tell him even harder.  He made it to the camp. Whispered to people there through the fence.  While they searched, he went for food; the hands and faces he could see through the fence were gaunt.  As he passed food through, bit by bit, they told him.

“They...they weren't there, Étienne.”

The priest closes his eyes, shoulders dropping.

“The prisoners said they sent half of the people east three weeks ago.”

“East,” he repeats, flat and gutted.  “Where?”

“Another camp. They didn't know the name.”

Étienne takes a step back, tries to compose himself.  James can see the rage and despair vying for him. His hand comes up to press at his eyes and he knows despair is going to win.

“And the others?” His voice is thick with grief.

James grins a savage grin, memory still tingling in his fingertips.  “I pulled the fence down while those wretched bastards slept.” He reaches out to grasp Étienne’s wrist.  “Compiègne has been liberated.”

But there’s no answering smile on the priest’s face.  Just a nod and the pressure of his fingers along James’s forearm.  It’s all the joy he can manage.

  
  


He’s starting to wonder if the priest sleeps at all.  The man keeps more vampiric hours than an actual vampire.

James can hear him moving about.  He goes downstairs for a time, visiting with his guests.  Then he paces the aisles. Then he goes downstairs again. When he comes back upstairs, James hears him take a seat in one of the pews.  There’s a heavy sigh. Then silence.

He’s brooding.

James knew he would take it hard.  He was so angry over the death of one man last week, and while there’s no guarantee the townspeople he knew are dead, there’s no guarantee that they aren’t.  He’s imagining the worst. Somehow, James has a feeling he’s also imagining he has some fault in it. 

That’s what makes him go down.  He steps lightly off the ladder.  The one candle Étienne always keeps burning - the flame that could char James to ashes - is the only light.  It’s like a Caravaggio come to life.

Étienne is slumped in the first pew.  A bottle occupies the seat next to him.  It’s not open, but he’s staring at it like it holds equal parts poison and panacea.

James steps forward carefully.  Étienne has a temper, he knows this, and he’s not eager to have another bottle launched at him.  This feels different, though. This time, it isn’t his fault.

“It won’t help,” he says softly.

Étienne closes his eyes and sighs.  “I know.”

James eases himself down onto the second step of the dais.  There’s more to be said, maybe, but it won’t come easy. The blond is used to being alone with his thoughts, and James has seen the way he checks himself when it comes to things he thinks are better left a mystery.  James doesn’t take it personally. He’s been in the world long enough to understand that Étienne is probably involved with some organized resistance group. Secrecy is vital. So if this is the one area in which this man is capable of caution, he won’t challenge it.

After a while, Étienne asks, “Where were you going?”

It’s not the line of questioning James expects.  “What do you mean?”

“Why were you here, the night we met?  This is a small town. Nobody comes to Champsecret purposely.  They just pass through on their way to somewhere else.” 

Well, he’s not wrong.

“I was...on my way to Portugal.”

Étienne huffs a soft laugh.  “Taking the long way?”

_ I wanted to be close to my food source,  _ he thinks.  He won’t say that, though; his patience for Étienne’s critiques on his diet only goes so far.  A lecture will send him right back up to his roost. He doesn’t really want that; it feels like they’re getting somewhere cordial.

“Maybe I was,” he allows.

“So why Portugal?”

He’s unsure why he hesitates.  Maybe it’s reluctance to tell someone so heedlessly brave that he was running.  But so far, the only thing Étienne has judged him for is his feeding, and that he understands, even if he doesn’t agree.

“I was going to get on a ship,” James says.  “To America.”

“America?” he asks, and is there an edge to his voice, or is James just imagining things?  “What’s in America?”

“It’s what’s  _ not _ in America,” he mumbles.  The candlelight is a dull reflection on the polished plates of his arm.

The priest exhales slow and shaky, like he’s controlling something.  “James,” he says, “there is nothing here that isn’t also there.”

“There aren't Nazis in America,” he protests.   _ Are there? _

Étienne shakes his head. “I’m talking about ideas, and I'm sorry to say, their ideas are everywhere.”

He’s probably right.  James sighs. “That's a pretty bleak picture you're painting, Father.”

Étienne shrugs.  “Not if you follow the teaching that we're all flawed from the very beginning.”

James considers him; it seems out of character, though admittedly he barely knows the other man.  “You really believe that?”

“I have to, don't I?” His hand is worrying the rosary again.  “Why else would so many people willingly be part of this?”

That is a question, indeed.  More than once, James has thought:  _ how could your God let this happen? _  Étienne must think it, too, sometimes.  Maybe all the time on nights like this one.  The talk seems to be helping, at least.

“The important thing,” Étienne continues, “is that everyone, no matter how flawed, has the potential for grace.  I believe that, too.”

It sounds like living with whiplash; bracing for the worst, but looking for the best in a person.  He wonders how many times Étienne has been disappointed. There’s a part of him, a small little forgotten thing, that doesn’t want to let him down.  Unfortunately, it’s inevitable. He is what he is, and he’ll be here long after this priest takes his last hopeful breath.

For a time, though, he can  _ help. _  And he can bask in this rare, if conditional, acceptance. After so many years of drifting, it feels surprisingly good to be anchored.  To a place, an idea...a  _ person. _

“So what's next?”  It’s as good a time as any to ask.

The blond studies him, a thousand thoughts behind his eyes.

“I have to get them out,” he says at last, and James doesn’t need to ask who he means.  “I don't know how much longer our luck is going to hold. The Germans are marching on Moscow and no matter which way it goes, they're going to bleed us dry to feed their army. It's going to get worse.  When people are hungry enough…” he makes eye contact, and a chill dances up James's spine at the knowledge there, “some will do anything to get fed.  Even sell out their neighbors.”

“Okay,” he replies, a bitter taste in his mouth.  No doubt the armies of Romania are marching toward Moscow on the heels of the Germans. Or worse, in front of them. His countrymen, falling in fields of blood for such terrible ideals.

At that thought, he wrests the cork from the bottle and takes a long draught.  The wine is good, rich, dry, and the fruit on his tongue reminds him of summer plums taken in his mother's kitchen overlooking the water in Constanta. The memory is centering.

Étienne slides from the pew to sit beside him.  He loosens his collar and his shirt. James presses the bottle into his hand without being asked and watches the column of his throat as he swallows.  He can’t pretend that he doesn’t want to put his mouth there and taste the salt of his skin with the tang of iron just beneath.

Fuck. This is foolish, so foolish, but he's in it now.

“What are the options?” he asks.

Étienne hands the bottle back and starts talking.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is hatched for relocation, and Steve and James learn a little more about each other - including how to press the wrong buttons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dub-con, underage, and implied non-con warning for this chapter. We learn a little bit more about Steve's past via a short flashback. It's mostly implied, see endnote. It will be demarcated by ***.

As it turns out, the options are few, and they’re all dangerous.

Going south and crossing over the Pyrenees is still possible, but it’s already mid September, and it won’t be long before the mountain passes become frigid and treacherous.  Steve is adamantly against sending people to try their luck in the unforgiving cold. Beyond that, their contacts have been silent for a few months now, and it seems a momentous task to try to find new ones.  A question posed to the wrong person could be the end of them all.

By now, most of the monasteries and convents have been taken over by the Nazis.  They aren’t a refuge anymore. His brothers and sisters in Christ can’t help, though Steve is sure they want to.  He’s glad his own hands are a little less tied...for now.

That leaves two options: crossing the English Channel or keeping things as they are.  Steve is willing to overwinter with his guests, but it makes him incredibly nervous. He doesn’t want to have to start viewing everyone with suspicion, even if it’s the smart thing to do, and he’s keenly aware that at any moment the indulgence of their occupiers could end.  Because it  _ is  _ indulgence.  He knows that the Third Reich would sooner be done with Catholicism, but people have rebelled over less.

And then there’s crossing the Channel.  It seems like madness to even consider it.  It has all the same problems as sending people south, with the added difficulty of an unpredictable body of water that’s liable to become an open warzone at any time.  Last he heard the English had positively littered the water with minefields to stop the German submarines. If that hadn’t worked, well, the war would be over, but the fact remains that the English know where the mines are and can avoid them, and the Resistance does not. 

“There’s always a smuggler,” James says.

Steve thinks back to New York during Prohibition.  There was always  _ someone _ who either made booze or knew how to get it.  It follows that someone must also know how to safely cross the Channel to ferry illicit goods and information.  Trouble is, those moonshine men in New York had nebulous morals at best, and weren’t known for their generosity.  If they find someone willing to take the risk in the here and now, they need to be able to pay. 

The church collection has been nonexistent, mostly because Steve hasn’t been passing it around.  He knows everyone needs every centime. The only thing he can think of is ration cards. If Oskar can give him enough…

But Oskar hasn’t been back since the altercation with James.  Steve told him not to go out at night, and night was the only time he could ever get away from his duties to go to church.  There’s no safe way to contact him. It’s a major sticking point in what’s starting to look like their best option. 

“We have nothing to pay a smuggler,” Steve says.

James’s right brow goes up, and his pouting lips try to hide a smirk.  “What, you don’t think they’ll do it out of the goodness of their hearts?”

“I’m an optimist,” he returns, “not a naïf.” 

James dips his head as if to concede the point.  “Well, I can go north and feel things out. I’m not affiliated with anyone, so if I ask the wrong questions, it doesn’t go past me.  And I can take care of anyone who--” he trails off, eyes dropping. Steve knows he’s making his Stern Priest Face. He’s very much aware that James doesn’t agree with his stance on murder, and that he probably killed someone on his jaunt to Compiègne, but he’s  _ trying. _  That’s worth something.

Steve softens his face. 

“You became a Resistance fighter the second you pulled down that fence,” Steve says.  “I suppose I’ll have to think of a codename for you, so you can be my contact.”

There’s something pleased in James’s face that he tries to hide.  Steve has a feeling it’s been a long time since he  _ belonged _ anywhere.  Were vampires solitary creatures?  Somehow, in the limited thought he’d given these creatures of the night, he always assumed they were as social as regular humans.  Then again, he also assumed they couldn’t be in the sun, and that was wrong. He has to admit that he knows next to nothing.

Like whether or not the vampire can actually feel the wine he’s drinking.  Steve is feeling it a little, just enough to feel a warmth and relaxation he wouldn’t have been able to achieve on his own.  Objectively he knows he did everything he could for the endangered residents of this town; there just wasn't enough time. It's still hard to swallow, and even more difficult to shut off that voice in his head that says, on repeat,  _ you're worthless. _

The answer is to stay distracted until he’s so tired he falls asleep where he sits.  That usually works. James doesn’t seem to need much sleep; he’ll probably sit and talk for a while.

“You said that I don’t know much about your kind.  You were right. Tell me about strigoi.”

James gives him a sideways glance.  “Why, so you can use your knowledge against me?”  Steve can’t really tell if he’s joking or not. Maybe James can’t tell, either, because his face is unreadable.

Steve just meets his glance, patient in a way he could never be for himself.  Either he’ll share or he won’t. He can understand why the vampire might be suspicious.  The Nazis had apparently known enough about his kind to capture him and do terrible things.  Knowledge is a weapon.

He looks away, shoulders rounding.  When he talks, he doesn’t look at Steve. 

“Strigoi can be alive or dead.”

Steve blinks.  He’s heard it said that vampires are  _ undead _ , whatever that means, but it’s never occurred to him that James could be dead.  He’s just...too alive in his appearance and demeanor. He smiles at his own concrete thinking.  There’s not a scientific explanation for it, at least not one he knows; James  _ could  _ be dead and Steve might very well be wasting his time worrying for a soul that no longer exists.

“Which one are you?” he asks.

Now James looks at him.  Something in his expression tells Steve he is, in fact, feeling that wine.  A moment later he reaches for Steve’s arm and tugs. Steve startles, but doesn’t pull back.  It isn’t an attack. It isn’t, even if it’s a cool metal hand around his wrist.

He places Steve’s hand on his right forearm.  His skin is warm to the touch, and soft. James guides his fingers to the pulse point below his thumb.  Steve tries to ignore the feeling of electricity that skitters along his skin at the contact. Instead, he concentrates on the thud of James’s pulse.

_ Alive. _

Something inside him locks up.  The last time he felt someone’s pulse like this...it was his mother the day before she died.  It wasn’t strong and steady like James’s forever-young heart. It was rabbit-fast, fluttering, and her skin burned with fever.  She was leaving him.

The emotions still hold the clout of a wrecking ball.  Suddenly he’s back there, a pretty fall day outside the window while his world crumbled inside.  The smells, her sunken cheeks, the waxy quality of her skin, it’s all still there inside his head, fresh as ever.  He can’t  _ stand  _ it.  He pulls away, trying to free himself of the memory.

“Étienne?” 

James isn’t offended, thank God.  He just looks concerned. It’s because a tear managed to slip down Steve’s cheek.  He swipes at it and tries to put words together.

“It’s...I…”

He can’t.  Even now, he can’t.  He squeezes his eyes shut and breathes until he’s certain he can manage a full sentence.

“Please just keep talking.”

And he already knows James is curious, maybe even a little nosy, but he leaves it alone.  Doesn’t press. Steve is very thankful for that.

“The living strigoi like me, we have to be made.  Bitten. Though some are cursed and know from birth what they’ll become.”  James fiddles with his clothing. “I was one of those.”

“How?” Steve asks, chasing the distraction.

“Well, there are certain portents.  Being born with a caul, for example, or being the seventh of seven sons or daughters.  That’s me. I had six brothers.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

James shrugs.  “It’s unlucky. Most people abandon that seventh child, but my mother was determined to raise me normally.”  Mirth tugs at the corner of his lip, and his eyes crinkle. “Though she did make me wear my hair long, to try to trick the creatures into thinking I was a girl.  I hated it when I was a kid, but I guess I’m vain.” He glances up at Steve and undoes the cord that holds his hair back. It cascades down, dark and lustrous. Steve remembers an echo of his dream, reaching for spun silk the color of coffee, and feels faintly ill.

“Who knows,” James continues, letting the moment slip by.  “Maybe it worked. I made it into my twenties and started to think I was safe.  I found someone foolish enough to marry me, and we had a daughter. A son, too, but a plague took him before he could even crawl.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says sincerely.  Losing a child must be a thousand times worse than what he’s endured.

James looks down; there’s still grief there, but it’s an echo, something distant.  “It's how things were, back then.”

“...Back when?”

“1640.”

Steve inhales.   _ Three hundred years ago _ .

“You’re--”

“I’ll be three hundred twenty four in March.  Don’t make that face. There are strigoi much older than me.”

Steve tries to wrap his mind around living that long.  He can’t. He’s an infant in comparison. Twenty-two years had already shown him enough pain; he can’t imagine the stuff of centuries.

“I made it eight more years,” James says.  “I got to see my daughter turn ten years old.”  His face softens. “She was beautiful.” 

“I bet she was.  What was her name?”

“Natalia,” he sighs.  He chews on his bottom lip and looks away.  “I had to leave after it happened, of course.  It was tempting to go back, to see how she’d grown, but I didn’t want to risk hurting her, or anyone else.”  He snorts. “I was idealistic, then.”

It’s easy to squash the sermon rising in his throat.  James didn’t choose to be this way. If his math is right, at thirty-one he was bitten by a vampire, fulfilling the ill omen he’d been born under. 

“Describe her to me,” Steve says gently.  “Maybe I can draw her for you.”

“That’s the terrible thing,” he replies.  “After so long, I can’t remember her face.  Just that she had red hair, and--” He stops, pauses, and then shakes his head and laughs.  “And she was a lot like you.”

“Like me?” Steve asks, nonplussed.

“Fearless.”

“I’m not fearless,” he scoffs.  “I just don’t like bullies.”

  
  


James keeps up his end of the bargain.  He talks until Steve can’t keep his eyes open anymore.  Steve stumbles to his room, half-asleep, and collapses face down on the bed.  And God is merciful tonight, because his sleep is dreamless.

  
  


“You don’t have to sleep much, do you?” he asks the next morning.  James has somehow ‘found’ eggs, and, well, stealing is wrong, but it isn’t as wrong as murder and he has to choose his battles.  The Nazis will live without eggs for one day.  They stole them first, anyhow.

“No,” James confirms.  “Twice a week, maybe.”

That would be incredibly useful and incredibly  _ awful _ .

“You don’t sleep enough,” James says after a moment.  And then, like a sniper, “Is it because of the nightmares?”  

_ Among other things. _

Steve is silent.  James doesn’t ask him anything else, but he knows that tonight, it’s his turn.

  
  


After they plan James’s trip north in search of smugglers with hearts of gold, Steve explains his strange reaction to a heartbeat beneath his fingers last night.  James listens intently.

“That’s her in your sketchbook, isn’t it?”

Steve nods.  “She was all I had.”

He can’t possibly imbue the statement with any kind of adequacy.  This is all too new and fragile to explain how her death didn’t stop the landlord demanding the rent from a fourteen-year-old, because  _ they get jobs younger than that. _  Nevermind that he refused to spend what little his Ma had left him on rent when she deserved to be buried and memorialized like a queen.  And she went at the end of the month, Sarah did, so Steve had six days to bury his mother, sell their possessions, and take to the street.

It was just this time of year, too.  Warmth easing into crisp wind, leaves underfoot, what few there were in the city, scratching across pavement with that particular scuffing sound.  He should have been going to school, but there was no more chance of learning. Now he had to work to survive. More than selling newspapers on the weekend, anyway.

Except there were no jobs.  It was 1932, the height of the Depression.  There was no work for anyone, let alone a skinny teenager with asthma and anger management issues.  It got too cold for the streets, for his thin hands to sketch portraits no one had the money to buy anyway.  He had to go to the church orphanage.

Oh, how that chafed.  He was so angry at God for taking his mother, so intensely furious and hateful that every moment in that place was like salt in a wound.  He isn’t proud of it now, but he picked fights, was rude to people who were only trying to help him, and generally got in so much trouble that by the next winter, they had given up on him.  The nuns gave him an ultimatum - behave or find another place to lay his head. And stupidly, he left. 

There still weren’t any jobs.  No money to be had. No food. He was fifteen and a half, mad and desperate and gullible.  An easy target.

***First it was just pictures.   _ Just some risqué photographs, that’s all.  No one’ll see your face. Shame, it’s a cute one. _

It was a quick drop from there to his knees.  Men, women, they  _ paid.   _ And it was just to get by, just to put food in his belly and a roof over his head (with three other prostitutes) so he could survive.  He could even buy books, teach himself what he was missing in school. When the economy got better he wouldn’t have to do it anymore. He daydreamed about it whenever he had a dick in his mouth; he got good enough at it that he didn’t really have to pay attention, much.  

He learned everything he needed from Sam, an incredibly smart and beautiful man from Harlem who was meant for so much more.  Sam, just two years older but unreasonably kind and wise, who made him feel forbidden things for the first time. Sam, who kissed him on the mouth and told him he was worth something.

But of course the economy didn’t get better.  This was all there was, and more people were resorting to the oldest of professions.  More competition meant less money, and  _ you know, Steve, you should let the men fuck you, it pays better, there’s this rich guy who likes the look of you--*** _

“Étienne?”  James is shaking him by the shoulder.  He startles back to the present. Panic is fluttering in his chest.  In that moment, he feels like James can see how much of an impostor he is in this suit and collar.

“ _ Désolé _ _ ,  _ I…”

“You must have loved her very much.  I’m sorry, too.”

He nods weakly.  This is the most he’s ever said to anyone who isn’t Sam or a priest.  The result will be the same, though. Tonight there will be nightmares.

  
  


***He lashes at the hands that touch him.  He doesn’t want it, he doesn’t,  _ he doesn’t-- _

Steve wakes up enough to realize one of the hands is cool and smooth, and he can’t budge it.  James. He goes still, chest heaving. Waiting.

He  _ saw _ the look in his eyes before he went off to Compiègne.  He knows what James wants. He can’t stop him from taking it.

_ You’ll probably like it, too, the way you did with Alexander.*** _

“It’s over,” James says.  “You’re safe.”

He has to laugh.  It comes out strangled.  James’s face folds with concern as he lets go.  Steve immediately curls up on his side. It hasn’t been this bad in a long time.

“I can go,” James says haltingly, after a while.

Steve shakes his head.  Now that he’s in control of himself, he knows that what James wanted the other day was blood.  Not his body. Minor detail that said body was full of blood. It wasn’t like that.  _ He _ wasn’t like that.  Well, he might be like that, but not  _ like that.   _ Christ, he’s fucking delirious, his thoughts aren’t making any sense. 

“I didn’t hit you, did I?” he forces out.  His throat is dry and he sounds like a frog.

“No.  Didn’t start swinging until I touched you.”

“Maybe don’t…”

James nods.  “Right. You shouldn’t either, if I’m....”  He looks down at his left arm. “I’d probably take your head off.”

Steve turns over onto his back.  “Aren’t we a pair.”

James chuckles.  “You going back to sleep?”

“No.”

“You should, it’s only been four hours.”

Steve shakes his head.  Not a chance in hell. James’s lips purse slightly, but he doesn’t argue.  He lets Steve teach him gin rummy and loses every game but two, even when he’s trying to win.  By the time the sun comes up, he has James good and riled. He doesn’t like to lose.

  
  


Daylight breaks the spell.  They aren’t two men hiding from their pasts once the sun rises.  Étienne goes about his business making breakfast for his guests and James goes up to his roost to think.

He learned three things last night.  One, Étienne is more broken than he appears, two, he is extremely smart, with a strategic mind, and three, he’s damn good at bluffing.  His mind runs over the night again, searching for things he might have missed. What the hell happened to Étienne? A nightmare like that, and his body language after, the panic turning to resignation in his eyes - that wasn’t just from the loss of a beloved family member.  There’s more.

And the bruises on his back, where had they come from?  They were too fresh to be from his last run-in with the Nazis.  But they were there nonetheless, some purple, some yellow, where his shirt rode up.  Who is hurting him, and why is he letting them?

James exhales, perturbed.

  
  
  


Unconsciously, or maybe not, they seem to migrate to one another when the sun goes down.  There’s a nip in the air tonight. It’s cool in the church; Étienne has a worn plaid blanket around his shoulders.  James doesn’t feel it. Not yet.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Étienne asks.

“I don’t know.  The leads aren’t much to go on.  It could be a few weeks.”

The priest nods.  His face is a little tight.

_ I’ll miss you, too. _

“Hey,” he says, to push past the mingled dread and emotion, because it never ends well when he gets attached, “you said you were going to give me a codename.”

Étienne lights up a bit, nodding.  “Yeah. I thought maybe your middle name, but I couldn’t remember it exactly.  I knew it started with B, so…”

James raises an eyebrow.  “So?”

“So you’re Bucky.”

It’s not Bogdan, but it isn’t half bad.  “Where’d you get that from?” he asks with some amusement.

Étienne shrugged.  “I knew a kid named that, once.  Always liked it.”

“I do, too.  But for the record, my middle name is Bogdan.”

“Bog-dan,” he repeats, the syllables awkward in his mouth.  “What does that mean?”

“Gift from God.”

It’s Étienne’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“I know, I know,” James says.  “My mother had a sense of humor.”  Or she was stubborn as a mule, refusing to let her seventh son be anything less than cherished, no matter what the omens said.

“I think I would have liked her,” Étienne says.

James knows for a fact that she would have liked him.

“James,” the blond starts after a comfortable silence, and his voice is a little more serious now.  “I have a question.”

“Okay.”

“Can you feed from someone without killing or turning them?”

He sighs.  He should have known this question was coming, sooner or later.

“Technically, yes.  But it’s  _ extremely  _ dangerous.”

“For you?” Étienne asks, earnest as a babe.

“I thought you said you weren’t a naïf,” he returns, a little sharper than intended.

“I’m not.  Why is it dangerous?”

_ Because, you fool, a vampire’s control is something of a joke. _

“No matter what the intention is at the start, it’s very difficult to stop, Étienne.  Especially if it’s offered. It can be…” he shifts a little, trying to keep his mind from going places it shouldn’t.  “It can be very pleasurable for both parties and if I were to lose control…”

The priest absorbs that.  Then he sits up straight, and James already knows that look.  He’s in for trouble.

“I think you can do it.”

“Well, I appreciate your confidence, but it isn’t shared.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“No,” he says between his teeth, “because it’s too risky.”

“Then how do you know whether you can do it or not?”

James has to move.  He stands and paces, frustration roiling in his veins.  After a minute he stops, hands on hips, and stares at Étienne.  “I suppose you want to be the guinea pig, huh?”

“It makes sense.”

Hell and damnation,  _ this man _ .  “No.”

“But if you drink from me, you’ll never have to kill anyone.  You can take what you need and no one would have to get hurt.”

 There are about twenty things he wants to shout at Étienne.   _ Yeah, nobody but you!  Why don’t you think you matter?  Why are you so smart in some ways and so stupid in others?  Why do you want to save people who aren’t worth saving? Why do you have to tempt me?   _ But the only actual sentence that comes out of the chaotic jumble of his brain is the flustered, indignant exclamation of,

“It's not that easy!"

"It can be," Étienne insists.

James flounders in the wake of his misplaced optimism.  He's more than a little annoyed at the priest's inability to just give this up.  He can't say _I'm afraid you'll taste so good I'll kill you._   Instead, he caves in to his frustration and he snaps: "What makes you think I want that, anyway?  I don’t know where you’ve been!” 

He regrets it right away; it was needlessly unkind.  But the blond looks like he's been slapped.  Something  _ switches off _ in Étienne’s gaze.  Just like that, the life is gone from his eyes.

He stands up rigidly and says in the quietest, most terrifying voice, “Forget I said anything.”  And then he’s gone.

  
  


James paces for an hour, trying to understand what just happened. 

_ You panicked. _

That’s an understatement.  He’s sure that every vampire has overestimated his or her self-control at some point.  He’s never done it because the people who took him under their wings when he was new warned him against it in no uncertain terms.  It seems simple but it’s not, it’s not at all, and he will  _ not _ risk that with Étienne.  He won’t risk hurting or killing one of the kindest people he’s ever met.

Except, somehow, he’s  _ already _ hurt him.

He didn’t take the priest to be someone with thin skin.  It was stupid and mean, what he said, but the reaction wasn’t proportional to the slight.  It was like something inside Étienne _died._   He’s missing something here, something crucial.

_ Well, maybe he was a little insulted that you’ve been slurping down Nazis without batting an eye, but you’re worried about  _ his _ worth as a meal. _

Fuck.  Why is he such an idiot?  He’d be insulted if someone said that to him.  And stupid or not, it took bravery and selflessness to offer what he did; his lack of appreciation had to sting.

He walks to Étienne’s door.  James stands there for several minutes, hand raised to knock.  Slowly, though, he lowers his hand. He needs time to cool down.  It won’t do any good to try to talk to him now. James has no idea what to say, anyway.  He needs to think. 

  
  


The night drags.  He wasn’t tired to begin with, and sleep is out of the question with his mind doing somersaults.  He’s  _ positive _ Étienne isn’t sleeping, either, but a game of cards isn’t going to smooth this one out.

Maybe the best thing he can do is just leave.  This is a game he knows better than to play. He thought he could be helpful, but he isn’t what Étienne thinks he is.  He isn’t some enlightened being with an unfortunate dietary compulsion. He’s a monster.

He’s half convinced himself to go when he remembers the people downstairs.  From there it’s a quick cascade; the body in the square, the sunken faces behind the fence, the banners  _ everywhere _ , Étienne vowing to die before he gave James up.  He can’t go. He can’t let them win, and he most certainly can’t let any harm come to the people under this roof.  The mere thought of the Nazis hurting Étienne inspires a violent lurch in his chest.

No.  He stays.  

  
  


Étienne avoids him come morning.  He knows how to keep himself busy; it takes James six tries to corner him.  He finally catches up that evening in the kitchen.

“I thought you would have left by now,” he says, flat, not taking his eyes off his project.  He doesn’t waste anything from the garden. He’s preparing dinner with barley, sweet potato leaves, herbs, onion, and garlic harvested earlier.  He is incredibly good at making something out of nothing. There are eight bowls on the table, which tells James that he’s angry, but still willing to feed  _ all  _ his guests.

“We should talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”  He’s as closed off as ever. And pretty good with that knife, by the look of things.

“Please, Étienne.” 

He whips around, knife in hand.  His eyes flash; at least there's a little life in him today.  “Did you change your mind?”

James blinks, uncertain, eyes on the knife.  It won't kill him but he'd still rather make it out of here without being stabbed.  “About what?”

“About helping.”

“No, I--”

Étienne cuts him off with a growl.  “Then  _ go _ .”

  
  


James retreats.  He knows one thing; he’s not leaving until this is smoothed over.  There’s a glimmer of hope. Étienne leaves his bowl of savory barley porridge on the first pew, and James is  _ fairly _ certain he didn’t spit in it.

He works up his courage to knock on his door that night, but it isn’t even closed.  He’s fully dressed and dead asleep on top of the covers, rosary dangling from his left hand.  His sleep looks untroubled, and by now he knows that's rare. James isn’t going to wake him.

  
  
  


Étienne loses his patience the next day.  They’re out in the garden. He drops his spade in exasperation and says, “Stop following me around.”

“I will when you give me a chance to say more than two words.”

“That was fourteen,” he grinds out. 

“Yeah, well, get ready for more,” James retorts.  “I’m sorry. What I said the other night was uncalled for.  I didn’t mean anything by it. I just panicked.” 

“What do you mean you  _ panicked _ ?” Étienne demands crossly, apology falling on deaf ears.

“I don’t want to hurt you, you  _ imbécile _ !” he nearly shouts.  “Look, people try it, and they end up killing people they care about!  I won’t do that. I won’t.”

There’s a startled silence.

“Then it’s...it’s not about…”  Étienne gives him a guarded look.

“ _ No _ ,” James says firmly, sinking down to the ground across from him.  “There’s nothing wrong with you. Well, except you’re kind of stupid, sometimes.  Like when you offer to let vampires live in your house and feed from you.”

“Just one vampire,” Étienne mumbles, not meeting his eyes.  “I don’t want you to have to kill anyone, whether they mean something to you or not.”

James says what’s on his mind.  “It’s kind of you to care.” He picks up the spade and hands it to the other man.  Étienne takes it. That line is between his brows and James braces himself.

“What if--”

“No.”

“But what if I--”

“Étienne.”

“--draw the blood myself and--”

“Will you  _ please _ \--”

“--give it to you afterwards?” the blond finishes.  “Would that work?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.  “I don’t know.”

“Would you try it?” he challenges.  James wants to punch Étienne in his nakedly hopeful face.

“ _ I don’t know _ ,” he repeats in a snarl.

“Well, think about it!”

“I will!”

“Fine,” Étienne says, entirely too pleased with himself.

“Fine,” James growls, and stalks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***When he's telling James about his mother's death, Steve remembers the events afterward which led him to sex work, including but not limited to: homelessness, hunger, unemployment, and being a grief-stricken rage monster that gets kicked out of the church orphanage. He's underage (15 to 17), and it briefly describes him posing for photographs and performing sex acts for money. There's an allusion to non-con related to the previously mentioned Alexander that is not described.


	7. Chapter 7

Étienne wears him down.  Truth be told, so does the thirst.  It hits hard the next morning. It’s not surprising; his last meal wasn’t much of a meal.

The priest is in his room mending a rip in a pair of trousers.

“How would you draw the blood?” James asks irritably from the doorframe.  

He practically throws the trousers aside and stands up.  “I have medical supplies. And one of our guests taught me, just in case.  Does this mean you want to try?”

It doesn’t escape him that  _ his _ guests have become  _ our _ guests.  It makes something wiggle pleasantly in his belly, around all the other unpleasantness.

“I  _ guess _ ,” James frowns.

“Okay.”  Étienne springs into motion, but doesn’t actually know what he’s doing yet.  He fumbles a few things on his desk. “Okay, how much do you need?” 

Need and want are different things.  He doesn’t  _ need _ a lot.  The fear of starvation inside him  _ wants _ an awful lot.  But there’s only so much Étienne can give without ill effects.

“A...a wine glass?” Étienne asks.  “Soup bowl? Teapot?”

James actually feels sick at the thought of Étienne bleeding enough to fill a teapot.  Why is he agreeing to this?

“James?”

“Start with the glass,” he says faintly.  “We’ll go from there.”

  
  


It’s a little mesmerizing to watch the blood drain out of his arm.  Steve never had a problem with blood; even before his mother died he got in fights, and felt like his bloody noses were a badge of manhood.  Obviously he knows he was wrong about that now, and his memories of bloodstained handkerchiefs are less than pleasant, but this….this isn’t so bad.

When the glass is full, he has a brief moment of debate.  If it isn’t enough, and he pulls the needle out now, he’ll have to stick himself again.  He has to think about his veins if this is going to be an ongoing arrangement. But they don’t even know if it’s going to work, so no use worrying about it yet.

“Um,” he says to the empty church.  James is somewhere; he’s made himself scarce since the craving hit.  He understands the desire to hide, but truthfully, Steve would rather be able to see him right now.  It makes him nervous, like maybe he’s about to jump out at him, ravenous. “I’m done. Do you want me to bring it to you?”

“No,” James says from up above.  “Set it on the pew like you did with the food the other day.  And then go in your room and lock the door. Please.”

He doesn’t trust himself.  That’s reassuring. Would a lock and a door stop him?  Not with that arm, but Steve still has the fire. James made him swear he’d keep it with him and  _ use it _ if he got out of control.

Steve thinks James is stronger than he gives himself credit for, but this isn’t the time to argue.  It’s enough that he got him to agree to this. If it works…

God, he hopes it works.

He sets the blood down and backs away.

  
  


He can smell it all the way up in the apse.  Like fucking honey. He breathes hard. This is a mistake.  Once he knows the taste of him, he’s going to want it all the time.  He’s going to  _ need _ it.  He’ll think about it moving under his skin, coloring his cheeks pink, and his lips.

Who is he kidding, he  _ already _ thinks about those things.  This will only make it worse...but it’s a chance.  A chance to stop killing, at least for a little while.  He drops the ladder down.

The glass is warm in his hands.  Tentatively, he takes a sip, and  _ fuck _ .  He’s all the best things.  He tastes like port wine, strong, rich, tannic and sweet.  James feels his entire body go warm in a slow, heavy wave. He can’t help thinking how much better this would be if he had Étienne naked on his lap and could drink right from his neck.  He’d put his right hand around his cock, stroke slow, listen to him moan and feel the vibration against his lips. James squirms against the cold wood of the pew.

It’s a fact that people taste different when they’re aroused.  Sharper, somehow. Better. Though he doubts it can get much better than this. 

He’d been warned about this, too.  That one day there would be someone who tasted better than all the rest.  There would be a standard that could never be met again, and every meal thereafter would be a disappointment.  Though it was safe to say every meal he’d taken lately was a disappointment. 

He holds the empty glass in trembling hands.  It’s taken the edge off. He needs more, though.  The craving isn’t completely gone. He still thirsts, and now he’s buzzing with restless sexual energy that he knows he can’t resolve - not the way he wants to.  Not by carving lines into Étienne’s back and licking the blood from his fingers as he fucks him.

He’s not helping himself.  Not at all. He can’t go ask for more if he’s so turned on he can’t form words.  This hasn’t happened before; he’s never felt so goddamn unraveled.

He goes outside.  It takes a half hour in the forest, cool ground under his back, crisp air in his nose blotting out Étienne’s particular pheromone, to calm him down.  James isn’t fool enough to believe he won’t have his hand on his cock later, but at least he can think. He can go near Étienne’s door without wanting to break it down.

He knocks, then leans his forehead against the door.  Étienne won’t open it. James made him promise.

“Are you all right?” comes his voice from within.  He hangs back like James told him to; good man.

“Yes,” he breathes.  “But I...need...a little more.”   _ So much more _ .

“Okay,” he responds, and how is he so calm?  “How much?”

“One more.  That should…”

That will  _ have  _ to be enough.  He won’t make Étienne sick for his needs.

“Leave the glass.”  There’s command in his voice.  He’s taking it seriously, this risk James was so worried about.  “Step back against the wall.”

James does as he’s told.  He digs his teeth into his lip; as much as he fantasizes about fucking the priest, the way Étienne gives orders makes him want to get on his knees.  The door opens and there he is, candle in hand. Not taking any chances.

_ Good.  You’re so good. _

  
  


James looks…

Steve exhales.  He’s a  _ vision _ pressed up against the wall, hair loose, eyes heavy-lidded, lips parted, just the wicked tips of his canines visible.  His chest rises and falls a little too quickly. He doesn’t blink. He  _ radiates  _ sex and power and intoxication.

If Steve had let him anywhere near him like that...if he’d let him put lips and tongue and teeth to skin…

James was right.  It was this or nothing, because drinking directly from him was much too dangerous.  James would take, and Steve would give, and neither would get what they wanted in the end.

He crouches down for the glass.  James’s eyes follow him, pupils blown.  Steve wonders, in that moment, if being like this lowers his inhibitions.  If he’s at the mercy of the thirst. He knows vampires are famous for being seductive, but is it what they really want?  Or do they have to rely on sex and seduction to get close enough to what they really need?

That thought is like a punch in the gut.  He doesn’t want to imagine James sleeping with people so he can eat, because he’s been there.  He wishes, fervently, that it’s always been a choice for him.

_ I’ll never let anyone take advantage of you when you’re like this,  _ he vows. _  Never. _  He closes the door and locks it, and contemplates the phlebotomy kit on his desk.  The little voice in the depths of his mind that won’t go away says:

_ Not even me. _

He winces and reaches for the needle.

  
  
  


He doesn’t see James until the next morning.  He’s back to his normal self, except he looks sheepish, somehow, and ruffled.  

“I slept,” he says when he catches Steve staring at his hair, which is gathered into a messy plait.

“Feel better?” Steve asks.

James smiles, and it’s a bewildered thing.  “Yes,” he replies. “I really do.”

  
  
  


He feels so much better that it’s almost ridiculous.  After the second cup of blood and a few rounds of intense masturbation (Étienne’s God forgive him for fingering himself under the image of his son), he slept so hard that he woke up in the same position he dropped off in with drool at the corner of his mouth.  And now he feels like he could--

Like he could  _ run _ .

He hasn’t been able to since escaping Hydra.  He tried on the way to Compiègne and it just wouldn’t work.  He thought it was because of the arm, but now it makes perfect sense; he expelled their poison, only to take it right back in by feeding on those bastards.  No wonder he’s felt like such utter shit lately.

_ You are what you eat,  _ goes the saying.  James shudders. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to stomach a Nazi again.

Thankfully, it seems that Étienne’s plan worked.  It tested every bit of willpower James had, but he kept himself under control and he knows he can stay that way.  It’s the least he can do for Étienne, considering the tremendous personal risk and frankly  _ ludicrous  _ level of kindness he’s shown.  Had he known that this was how it could feel, this contentment and boundless energy, he wouldn’t have scoffed at his ideas.

_It’s only okay as long as it doesn’t hurt him,_ he reminds himself _._ Right.  He already knows that Étienne is altruistic to the point of stupidity, and he probably won’t say anything even if he can’t keep up with James’s needs.  He’ll have to watch him. He knows the symptoms. If he gets sick, that’s the end of it. It’ll be some kind of agony, but he won’t hurt him. He won’t.  In the meantime, he can shift into his wolf form and make much better time to Caen than he thought.  There’s still no guarantee he’ll find anything there or anywhere else, but nothing can really dent the way he feels right now.  He feels, _finally_ , like he belongs to himself again.  That’s the only way to describe it. Étienne’s blood, full of his goodness and freely given, has somehow cleansed him.

There’s no real way to repay him, but getting his people out and safe is a start.  It’s time to go. James packs a few important things into his pockets; whatever is on him during the transformation stays with him, conveniently.  Then he goes to look for Étienne and say goodbye.

He finds him in the tiny courtyard out back.  It’s a beautiful day and the gray stones are bathed in light.  With the sun and the birds and the breeze, one could almost forget there’s a war on.

“You’re leaving?” the priest asks after a moment.  He doesn’t look up; he’s sketching with charcoal, brow creased in concentration.  There’s a smudge of coal dust on his cheek.

“Yes.”

He does glance up then, briefly catching James’s eyes, then traveling over the rest of his face like he’s looking for something.  Then back to the sketchbook.

“Be careful,” he says fretfully.  He shades something with the side of his thumb.  “If there’s trouble, don’t risk getting captured.  We’ll find another way.”

“I won’t get captured.”  His curiosity gets the better of him, because it’s the first time he’s actually witnessed Étienne drawing.  “What are you working on?”

He flushes a little and stares at the page.  “Uh, well, I hope you won’t mind, but...I kept thinking about your daughter, and how you ought to have a picture to remember her by.  It’s just a rough thing, and I’m probably not even close, but I thought maybe we could go feature by feature, you know?” He hands the pad to James.

James sits on the bench next to him.   _ Just a rough thing _ , he said.  It’s beautiful.  No doubt it’s someone’s daughter, but it’s not his.  He can see where Étienne worked in his features, though.  Her eyes are the same shape as his, light-colored, and something about that feels right.  The shape of the face is unfamiliar, but if he squints at it, he can almost... 

“Her lips,” he says around the lump in his throat, “they were fuller.”

Étienne nods and takes the pad back with gentle fingers, making a note for himself.  “Anything else?”

James stares at the drawing, trying to will his memories forth on the scaffolding of this stranger’s face.  It’s  _ so _ incredibly kind and thoughtful of Étienne to even try.  His chest feels a little tight.

“I...I think her chin was smaller.”  He gestures at his own chin like he’s stroking an imaginary beard.  “More pronounced, maybe.”

Étienne makes another note and smiles at him.  James takes the moment to memorize that handsome face.  He’ll outlive him just like everyone else, but he doesn’t want to forget the way he did with Natalia.  Of course, there are photographs now.

“I’ll draw a new one while you’re gone.”

“It’ll take a long time,” James says.  There must be thousands of faces in the world, millions.  They might never get the right combination.

Étienne shrugs.  “You’ll be here. And hopefully I will, too, for a little while.”

The desire to kiss him is staggering in its intensity.  This isn’t like the lust-fogged fantasies brought on by the thirst, though.  It’s deeper, something primal and expansive beneath his ribs. It makes him short of breath.

He could do it.  He’s right there, within arm’s reach, like a beacon.  One move. Instead he reaches out and brushes the coal dust from his cheek.  This time, Étienne doesn’t jump when he touches him.

“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

The priest smirks and drags a charcoal-stained finger across James’s cheek.  “Don’t worry, I’ll save it for when you get back.”

James grins helplessly.  Then he gets up and forces himself not to run for the cover of the trees, panic edging up his throat.  He knows this feeling. It’s been a long time, but the feeling itself doesn’t change. 

He’s in love.

He runs.  He runs like Hydra is at his heels, trying to drag him back, his heartbeat a steady rhythm of  _ oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck  _ in his ears.  He goes hard for the first two hours until the panic starts to ebb and he can pay attention to the wind on his face and the smells in the air.  By the time he skirts by a town called Athis-de-l’Orne, he’s calm.

He stops at a stream to drink and rest.  He feels hyperaware of his body the way he used to when all this was new.  Maybe it’s new again.

He pants in the shade until he’s calm.  The fur on this body is thick; it’s been so long since he changed that there hasn’t been time for it to know the season and shed accordingly.  Even so, it’s tolerable, and winter will be here soon enough. 

Finally, he lets himself look at his left front leg.  It’s bare like one of those naked cats, strange and striated in appearance.  Not quite scarred, not quite smooth. He doesn’t like it. But it’s gone along with the change instead of just falling off and leaving him a three-legged dog.  That’s something, at least. He’ll have to learn to live with it.

It isn’t common knowledge that his people can shift into animal forms.  For all that Hydra seemed to know, they didn’t know  _ this _ , and he wants it to stay that way.  Should he risk showing Étienne this form?  He wants to - it’ll  _ tickle _ the priest, he’s certain - but if he ever gets captured…

_ The only thing you should show him is your back as you walk away, after this is done. _

Ugh, he  _ knows _ that voice is right.  He can’t do this. He can’t love a mortal.  It ends.  _ They _ end, by time or circumstance or a slip of teeth.  And then the grief and guilt are his forever.

_ But it’s been so long. _

Yes, it has.

James sighs and closes his eyes to nap.

  
  
  


The crowd for Vespers is sparse, moreso now with darkness and therefore curfew coming earlier.  He doesn’t expect to see Oskar in the third row. Neither does anyone else; his five most devout attendees can’t stop staring at the uniformed intruder.  Steve has mercy on them all and keeps it short. The townspeople scatter as soon as he’s done. Oskar stays.

Steve strides over and offers a hand.  Oskar shakes it firmly. That’s followed by a shy, tired smile.

“How have you been?” Steve asks. 

Oskar shrugs.  He looks older.  That’s not a good sign.

“May I confess?”

“Of course.”

He fidgets.  “It will take a while.”

And it’s against every rule, but Steve doesn’t care.  He pours Oskar a small glass of wine and sets it in the confessional before he settles in.  He even lets him smoke, because by the time he’s five minutes in his hands are shaking. In twenty, Steve is sitting on his own hands to keep from punching something.

The scale of this war is staggering.  The Nazis are in the midst of a full-scale assault on Moscow and everything in between has fallen or willingly joined their efforts.  They’re murdering Jews by the thousands, if Oskar is to be believed. Luxembourg, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania. He calls it  _ the final solution. _

“Not just Jews,” he says.  “Anyone. Everyone. Cripples, for God’s sake.”  He rubs his hands over his face like he wants to scrub himself clean.  “I have a cousin who...he...he doesn’t walk. But he’s all there. There’s nothing wrong with his mind.  Are they going to…?”

Steve doesn’t want to tell him yes, but he doesn’t really need to.  Oskar knows.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do it,” he whispers.  “When I joined it was about restoring Germany. Bringing glory to the homeland.  Not this.”

Steve hurts for him, for the way he’s been duped.  “You could desert. Hide.”

There’s a long silence on the other side of the screen.

“They’d find me.”

“Maybe,” Steve agrees.

“How do you always sound so calm?” Oskar demands, frustrated.

“Someone once taught me that you can’t change circumstances.  You can only decide what you’ll do when you’re faced with them.”

Direct quote from Father Bruce Banner, font of compassion and wisdom and the only other priest he’d ever met who admitted to getting angry with God.   _ It’s better to rage, Steven, than let injustice pass unchallenged.  But rage is useless unless you shape it into something softer and more purposeful. _

How right he was.  Things might have turned out very differently for Steve if Father Bruce had been with the parish during that fateful, tumultuous year he spent at the orphanage.  Alas, that’s one circumstance of many he hasn’t the power to change.

“It feels like He’s abandoned us,” Oskar laments.  He’s not the first to say such a thing.

“You could look at it that way,” Steve acknowledges.  “Or you can see it as a call.” 

“For what?”

“To do the Lord’s work.”

“But  _ this is _ the Lord’s work!”  He can see Oskar’s hands move in the air on the other side of the screen, a large, encompassing gesture.  This. The war.

“No,” Steve says, firm and emphatic.  “This is the work of men without the Lord in their hearts.”

There’s a thunk as Oskar lets his head drop back against the wall of the confessional.

“Is it worse to be a traitor to your country or your God?”

“If your country has lost sight of what’s right, the greatest patriotism lies in objection.” 

“You should give speeches,” Oskar says.  He gulps the last of his wine. “They intend to do away with the church.”

Steve feels a smile tug at his lips.  “The Romans tried that.”

There’s no response.  Oskar is out of words.  Steve still has some, and what he’s about to say is a tremendous risk.

“If you decide to run,” he says softly, “I can help you.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Oskar replies, “I doubt your friends in the Resistance would agree with that.”

That’s it, then; the cards are out on the table.  Some of them, anyway.

“Sometimes the Lord’s work is resistance.  And redemption. But you’re the one who has to decide.”

Oskar sighs and shakes his head.  “You really should give speeches.”

  
  
  


He isn’t going to run.  He doesn’t say it, but Steve knows in his gut.

He should be worried; Oskar obviously knows more than he should.  If he wants to escape the war, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that he might sell Steve out.  A few members of the Resistance might be enough to earn him transfer home. It could buy him his freedom.

But home isn’t really away from the war.  He knows the RAF is doing its damnedest to bomb Germany, so home - wherever that is for Oskar, he’s never asked - could be as much of a battlefront as anywhere out here.  Not that there’s been much fighting. No one in the Resistance is fool enough to believe there won’t be. Any sort of offensive to drive the Germans out of France would most logically come from the Channel - right through the heart of Normandy.  

The point is, Oskar has leverage, and Steve is still here.  Maybe it’s just that Oskar feels indebted. Steve did save his life, after all.  He wants to think better of the soldier, though. He wants to believe his struggle in the confessional means he’s strong enough to face the situation and do what’s right.  Unfortunately, Steve’s been disappointed before, and there was never quite this much at stake. 

He sighs; sleep won’t come easy tonight, and his usual late night companion (and distraction) is off on a mission.  He just left this morning, but somehow Steve already misses him. The church feels too empty with James gone.

Well.  He did promise him another sketch of Natalia.  That will keep him busy for a while.

  
  
  


Caen is beautiful.

Oh, it has that same pall, the dropcloth of occupation over everything, but its avenues are busy and its people unbroken.  James likes it instantly. 

James meanders his way down Rue Saint-Jean.  He’s to meet someone named Pierre at, of all places, Église St. Pierre.  A church can be a good place to exchange information; he’s seen Étienne’s parishioners do it often enough even in their tiny congregation.  Down on a kneeler, head low, voice quiet, the Resistance whispers look an awful lot like simple prayer.

He goes in.  It’s staggeringly different than Étienne’s simple church.  He gets lost staring at the vaults and windows. Imagine the view from  _ this _ apse…

“ _ C'est magnifique, n'est-ce pas _ ?”

He looks over, and it must be Pierre.  He’s pleasant enough to look at; tall, muscular, a hint of puckish defiance in his face that even war hasn’t erased.  James sees the intelligence there, too. He can tell right away that this is a man who hides how smart he is behind a veil of buffoonery.

“Yes,” James agrees, “like the Eiffel Tower at sunset.”

Pierre’s lips twist in something that’s half-grimace, half-smile.  It’s what Étienne told him to say to confirm he’s talking to the right person.  Seems pretty inexact to him; he’s learned that everyone in this country has an opinion about said tower.

“I prefer sunrise,” he returns, struggling to master his face.  That’s the correct response. “Are you finished with your prayer?”

James nods.

“Then let’s go to the real chapel,” Pierre says, and his discomfort with the church is obvious.  James follows him out into the street.

  
  


The real chapel, as it turns out, is a bar.  It’s across the street from another bar, that one with Germans spilling out the door and lounging in wicker chairs.  James can’t help himself; he tenses up. Is Pierre insane?

“Sometimes,” he murmurs, into the lackluster foam on his beer, “the best place to hide is in plain sight.”

He hopes this man and Étienne never meet.  They’re both stupid and would only encourage one another.  He watches Pierre, who watches someone across the way - the barmaid.  She’s slender and leggy with gorgeous dark skin and hair. The soldiers are not immune.  They take every chance they can get to make a pass at her. Pierre looks faintly like he wants to murder them.

Ah, so it’s like that.

“They pay so much attention to her that we could be talking about poisoning the Führer and no one would hear a word,” he growls.  “No one would think we’re dumb enough to talk about that here, anyway.  _ Parfait _ .”

James exhales.  He feels exposed, but Pierre is probably right.

“What  _ are _ we going to talk about?”

“Goods and services,” he replies with a smirk.  “You need something, I might have it.”

  
  
  


He spends an hour and a half just sitting, drinking, and talking with Pierre after that.  It’s a test. It’s hard to tell if he’s passing or not. But eventually, another man comes to sit with them.  He’s enormous and covered in tattoos.

That’s how he meets Monsieur Drax.  They claim he’s a Flemish fisherman but James isn’t so sure.  What he is sure of is that Monsieur Drax has been hit in the head a few too many times.

Pierre doesn’t let him drink more than half a glass.  Reminds him to lower his voice about a dozen times, except when he’s laughing, which he does often.  They know one another well, these two, and Pierre treats him like a brother.

“I like him,” Drax announces suddenly, pointing at James.

“ _ Moi aussi _ ,” Pierre says, nodding.

And just like that, he’s passed the test.

  
  
  


Drax is definitely not a fisherman.  Half a day on the road with him has told James that much.  He’s a soldier, through and through, the kind that’s only retired by his state of mind.  

He might actually be Flemish, though; his French is strangely accented and his phrasing odd.  Though when he asks, Monsieur Drax says he’s from Dunkirk and not much else.

Pierre stayed behind in Caen, unwilling to take his eyes off the barmaid, who he now knows is named Mademoiselle Gamora.  Gamora’s deadbeat German father is a bigshot general on the Eastern Front; her North African mother has been gone since she was a little girl.  Most people think she and her half-sister Nebula are collaborators. She lets them. She gets a hell of a lot of information right from the source, and that information goes straight to the Resistance.  Still, James doesn’t envy the abuse she must take, playing that game. He thinks that’s part of the reason Pierre stays; he’s worried someone will hurt her. It’s absurdly clear that he’s in love with Gamora.  And that Gamora can probably defend herself.

James can’t throw stones.  He just hopes Gamora loves him back, and that they all live to see the other side of this war.

“Where are we going?” James asks, when he and Drax take a break to eat a small meal of bread and stunted crabapples they found on a tree along the way.  He could move faster if he was alone, but Drax is an efficient traveler; he’s covered these roads before and makes for agreeable company.

“To visit Roquette and Gracine,” Drax replies, like James is supposed to know what that means.  He supposes he will, soon enough. 

  
  
  


“He’s not stupid,” Pierre said, before they left.  “He lost everything, and it changed him. Just be patient.” 

James believes every word of it, by the time they get to the seaside towns of Barneville-sur-Mer and Carteret.

  
  
  


There’s a port in Carteret, and it’s  _ crawling _ with Germans.  He doesn’t see how it would be possible to sneak anything in or out.

“You haven’t met Roquette,” Drax says, blissfully calm.  “He’s the biggest sneak I’ve ever known.” James bites his lips against a laugh; normally, that would be an insult, but Drax is smiling like the sun shines out of Roquette’s ass.

  
  
  


That, he discovers, could not be further from the truth.  Roquette is curt and dismissive when they meet him that night.  

“Look, this operation doesn’t run on hopes and dreams,” the short, lithe man says.  His eyes are lined with kohl and the circles under them amplify the dark pigment. “You got six bodies you need to move, I’m gonna need payment.  Fifty percent in the next 24 hours or you’re waiting ‘til next year.”

“Six  _ people _ ,” James corrects through his teeth.  “People who will be murdered if we don’t get them out.”

“Yeah, well, every time I cross the Channel I run that risk, so it ain’t something I do for free, understand?”

He barely makes eye contact.  He’s too busy with whatever he’s fixing, small, clever hands tweaking wires.  His partner, Gracine, might as well not even be there. The man doesn’t say a word.  He’s just a tall, hulking presence, about as emotive as a tree.

_ Security. _

Maybe, maybe not.  As James fumes and tries to figure out what to do, Roquette asks Gracine questions and seems to know how to interpret the way he hums and grunts in response.  They’re an odd pair, to be sure. 

He sighs.  Drax made himself scarce once the smugglers came ashore.  Something about a game in one of the dockside shanties. He remembers the way Pierre watched what he drank; he’s sure there’s a reason for it.  He hopes Drax isn’t setting himself up for a rough evening.

Roquette seems to arrive at the same set of concerns a moment later.  His head shoots up.

“Where’s Drax?”

“He went over there,” James replies, pointing.  “About a half an hour ago.”

“ _ Merde,”  _ Roquette groans, rubbing a hand over his face and smearing his kohl even more.  “Gracine, go get him.”

Gracine nods and hums.  It’s good he’s as big as he is (though it’s mostly height); only a person of that size could possibly wrangle someone as musclebound as Monsieur Drax.  But before he even makes it to the shanty, shouting breaks out. It’s in German.

“Fuck,” Roquette says, like an exasperated parent.  Like this happens every week. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He pulls a vicious looking handgun from some pocket.  He gestures toward the deck of the boat with it. “Hide.”

“No.  I can help.”

For the first time, the dark eyes actually see him.  “You got a gun?” 

“Don’t need one,” James replies, matter of fact.

“All right, hot shot.   _ Allons-y. _ ”

  
  


It’s a quick scrabble, just enough to get the adrenaline going.  Roquette and Gracine can fight, and so can Drax. They do the honors of killing the Nazis that tried to break up the little dockside gambling ring.  James gets to go home to Étienne with a clean sheet.

_ Since when is it home?  Since when is  _ he _ home? _

He pushes the thought away and washes the blood from his knuckles with cold ocean water.  It’s in that moment that he realizes that his sleeve ripped during the skirmish. His metal arm is on full display, and Roquette is staring at him, mouth open.

It only lasts a moment.  Drax is spoiling for more.  Thankfully he’s not wounded, at least not any wound they can see.  Gracine is speaking to him low in some incomprehensible language. James can hear the harsh shape of the other man’s French in it; this is their native tongue.

Roquette puts his gun away, his movements jerky with rage.

“They killed his family right in front of him, you know.  Now, he has one drink and he thinks he can take down the entire Wehrmacht to avenge them.” 

“I’m sure he’s not alone.”

“No,” Roquette agrees, nudging the last of the Nazis off the dock and into the water.  He’d filled the man’s boots with rocks and tied them around his neck. He sinks in seconds.  “He’s not.”

  
  
  


It takes a while to get Drax settled.  Gracine stays with him. There’s something very gentle about the tall man; James is beginning to understand why the partnership with Roquette works.

Roquette went right back to fixing the innards of his boat as soon as the fight was sorted.  He’s silent, but James can  _ feel  _ his eyes drifting to the metal arm over and over again.  He has no way to conceal it, so he doesn’t try.

After what seems like hours, Roquette closes the panel and comes to sit near him.  He takes a huge gulp of something from a flask. It smells like gin. For another ten minutes, he doesn’t say a word.

Then, like he can’t hold it in anymore, he edges forward and pulls his shirt up.  There are scars all over his back. Glints of metal. James’s breath catches.

“They shot me full of chemicals.  Cut me open and put in all these  _ implants _ .  I don’t even know what they’re supposed to  _ do _ .”  He tosses some more gin back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  “I never met anyone else like me.”

“Neither have I,” James says, flexing his metal hand.  It stays fisted.

“We were all in a prison camp after Dunkirk.  Pierre, Gracine, Drax, and me.”

There’s that mention of Dunkirk again.  James is ashamed that he doesn’t know what or where they’re talking about.  It was obviously something big, and these men were on the wrong end of it. He must have been trapped on Zola’s table when it happened.  He’s going to have to ask Étienne about it when he gets back.

“We didn’t know each other before, but wound up fighting together a lot.  Most people got rescued. We weren’t lucky enough for that. We weren’t even lucky enough to get shot that first day.”

James twitches a little at that.  He’d thought something similar a thousand times in Hydra’s captivity.   _ If only they burned me.  If only they chopped off my head.  If only I bled out when they cut off my arm. _

“We’ll get your people out,” Roquette says, his voice a mix of spite and determination.  “Be here on 26 November. 21:00. If we aren’t here, it means we’re dead.”

James swallows the emotion rising in his throat and nods.  “And...payment?” he hazards.

“You’re paid in full after tonight.”  Roquette holds out the flask. James takes it.  The gin isn’t anything that comes in a store-bought bottle; it’s like chewing on a juniper branch, a woodsy, astringent slap in the face.  He could drink more of it. He will, on 26 November.

“Thank you.”

Roquette lifts the flask in salute, and then gets up to join his friends.  James knows that’s his cue to go. He leaves the port, hugging the shadows.  Once he’s beyond the city limits he shifts. 

His heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest with so many emotions.  The predominant one, however, is exhilaration. He did it. He  _ helped. _  He found a way to get Étienne’s people to safety.  There are still a lot of hurdles to be jumped, plenty of places where things can go wrong, but the hardest part is done.

He can’t  _ wait _ to tell him. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, sorry for the wait. October was a rough month; I got really sick at the beginning of it, and then had to work an ungodly amount of days in a row. BUT! I have finally finished this chapter. 
> 
> Thanks to the lovely @daphneblithe for cheering me on.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy it. ;)

 

He’s a little slower getting back.  The weather has turned. It rains for days, turning the world to mud that slides and squelches beneath him and clumps into irritating little pellets between his paw pads.  He’s grateful for the winter coat now.

He loses count of how many days he’s been gone, but he knows it should have been long enough for him to need to feed.  But he feels  _ fine _ .  No cravings.  Nothing.

That priest is really something.

James shakes out his coat and huffs.  He thought maybe time away would clear his head.  Rid him of the sudden improbable infatuation that could very well have been blood-mediated.  Who could blame him, after a bit of that ambrosia? Beyond that, there’s no denying that Étienne is lovely to look at, and has the soul to match...and that’s exactly why James can’t let himself fall down this rabbit hole.  He has nothing to offer this man. Nothing but pain.

He reaches the edge of the woods behind the church, where he shifts back to his human form, stretching out sore muscles.  He’ll tell Étienne about his wolf form eventually. Maybe. But not yet.

James lets himself in the back door with the rusty spare key and breathes the old stone smell of the church.  It’s familiar and more welcome than he realized. His feet take him to Étienne right away.

And he’s given himself plenty of strongly-worded talks, made several resolutions not to be silly and reckless and juvenile about things, but all of it falls away when he sees him.  Étienne glances up from his notebook and his face  _ lights up _ .  It’s the cutest goddamn thing James has ever seen.

“Welcome back!” he exclaims, beaming.  

He’s up from his desk in a second, pulling the heavy outer layers from James’s shoulders.  It’s only then that James realizes he’s soaked and dirty and, oh, fuck,  _ what does he even look like right now? _

“Are you all right?  Did you have any trouble?  Are you cold? Do you want some tea?”

James blinks, unsure which question to try to answer, or how anyone can concentrate when this man is in the room.  Étienne disappears and reappears with a hot drink. The mug of tea in his hands does feel nice. He focuses on that, taking a sip because he is incapable of forming words.

_ So much for not being juvenile. _

“I...I’m okay.  It’s okay.” He breathes.  Really looks at Étienne, past the blinding handsomeness.  He’s a little pale and there are bags under his eyes. Not sleeping much, then.  “Are  _ you _ okay?”

“It’s been quiet,” he says, like that’s any kind of answer.  “Are you hungry?”

James nods, because truly, he is.  He can’t complain, though. His last meal was a ham bone stolen out of the trash, with plenty of meat still clinging on because those Nazi fuckers have the audacity to steal food and throw it out half-eaten.  

Étienne is looking at him, and it takes too long for him to realize the question isn’t as a straightforward as it seemed.

“Food,” he says.  “I’m not...not yet.”

_ And I have no idea why. _

Étienne nods and heads for the kitchen.

  
  


His restraint is admirable.  He doesn’t ask James one single question while he eats, other than if he wants more.  The leftover potatoes with peppers and herbs are unassumingly delicious. The wine warms him.  When it’s done, they split a small piece of chocolate. The little sound of pleasure the priest makes, almost involuntarily, goes straight to James’s groin. 

The urge to kiss him is still there, unquenched by all the running and time and mental maneuvering.  He would taste like chocolate. Chocolate cut under with iron. James exhales and tries to think of literally  _ anything _ else.

Étienne is, thankfully, oblivious to his struggles.  He starts to clean up the dishes, but pauses as a thought strikes him.  “Do you want me to run a bath for you?” he asks.

It’s really been too long since he had a companion.  All he can feel is suspicion at how solicitous the other man is acting even though he knows this is just how he is.  Étienne is kind, plain and simple. He likes to take care of people even if he’s somewhat hopeless at taking care of himself.  

“Yes,” he says.  “That would...that would be lovely.”

_ Even more so if you joined me. _

But he isn’t going to press his luck.

  
  


While James is in the bath, Steve sits back down at his desk to try to finish the letter he should have written a long time ago.  He wasn’t lying to James when he said it had been quiet, but it feels flimsy. Like ice just beginning to form on the surface of a puddle; fragile, paper thin, apt to shatter with any perturbation.

In James’s absence, it’s weighed on him.  He knows the path he’s chosen is dangerous, but the mind has a way of making that an obscurity.  But his nightmares have been relentless the last few nights, and the less he sleeps, the more aware he becomes that this trajectory will almost certainly end in death.

Steve isn’t afraid of death.  He is afraid of not doing enough before it takes him.  He understands now what he hadn’t that day with Laure, months ago.  Risk has to be calculated. Martyrdom has its uses, but only if your side wins.

He isn’t going to stop.  Just endeavor to be smarter.  Common sense ( _ not so common, Steven)  _ dictates that  _ if _ Bucky made contact with a smuggler who could get a letter through, he’s beyond overdue to try to make contact with home, if only to tell them what’s happening.

  
  


_ Dear Father Bruce, _

_ I’m not sure this letter will reach you, and if it does, much of it might be redacted, but it’s worth a try.  I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner. I thought of you the other night, your patience and wisdom, and realized I owe you some peace of mind. _

_ So I’m writing to let you and the Archdiocese know, far too late, that I’m all right.  I’m still in France at the same parish where I was placed for my mission. Unfortunately, Pere Govinden passed away last winter.  Cancer, I think, though I never could get him to go to a doctor. I felt it was my God-given duty to stay and continue to minister to the congregation in these trying times. _

_ We are in the Occupied Zone, though we pretend that life goes on the same as before.  I’m still allowed to hold Mass. I’m not sure how long that will last. It’s getting harder and harder to pretend at freedom.   _

_ There is always someone watching.  There is curfew and rationing and sometimes our neighbors disappear in the night never to be seen again.  A month ago, they made us all watch an execution. Was it someone nefarious? No. It was the town tailor, who’d done nothing wrong.  Just an example to be made to keep us in line. _

_ I’m not sure what’s in the news back home.  But I can tell you that the things happening here in Europe are so much worse than anything you could imagine.  Whatever you think Hitler is ranting about on the radio, what he’s really after is extermination. The Nazis are in pursuit of an ideal of perfection and want to eliminate anyone who doesn’t meet standards or gets in their way.   _

_ So far the biggest scapegoats of this have been the Jews, though they are far from the only group being targeted.  They’re rounding them up and deporting them, housing them in squalid ghettos or labor camps, and I have heard many reports of mass killings.  I believe these reports. I’ve seen how easily they kill.  _

_ It’s cold, targeted, systematic.  Truly, it is an abomination before God.   _ _ Any _ _ God.  I want you to know, and I want you to tell everyone at home so they stop ignoring this.  I know we’ve turned people away, people fleeing from this horror. We sent them off to death under the torch of Lady Liberty.   _

_ It is not for me to pass judgment.  However, it is a fact that all of you at home sleep soundly at night at the expense of thousands in Europe, Africa, and Asia.  Maybe millions when all is said and done. We have never seen a catastrophe like this. Not even the Great War. _

_ It feels, here and now, like the future of humanity is at stake.  Maybe that’s a little grandiose, and prideful of me to think I can influence God’s plan, but I’ve never been good at backing down from a fight.  I don’t regret staying or joining the Resistance. I couldn’t be passive.  _

_ I’m sorry if I caused you any undue stress or trouble.  If I don’t come back, I want you to know I will forever appreciate what you did for me.  Without you, I wouldn’t be here. I would never have found my way out of the thicket of my own anger to do anything positive for myself or others.  You are a servant of God in the truest sense of the Word. _

_ Here’s hoping I can write you again, and one day come home to shake your hand. _

 

_ S.G. Rogers _

  
  


Steve sits back and stares at the words until they blur together.  He knows, without question, that Father Bruce would have done the same, were he here.  He also knows that if he ever reads these words, he’ll be in the Bishop’s ear, the Mayor, the senators of New York, anyone who will listen and plenty of people who won’t.  Father Bruce can’t watch an insect struggle on its back, let alone read about  _ genocide _ without helping.

It was Bruce who found him that night, after all.  It was February, brutal cold, almost one in the morning by the time Alexander was done with him.  And he was supposed to have until sunrise, at least, Steve thought maybe he would give him that after he took everything else--

Steve closes his eyes.  He won’t go back there. Not when he’s awake, not when he has any control over where his mind travels.  All that matters is that Bruce found him curled up on a pew at the very back of St. James, the church he’d attended with his Ma since he was old enough to remember such things, and not thrown him out like a vagrant.  In fact, Bruce had bundled him in blankets, called a policeman friend of his, and taken him to St. Vincent’s Hospital. He was there every day after that, all eighteen of them that Steve spent in that hospital recovering from ailments both familiar and hideously novel.

He knew what Steve had done, what he was, and still he showed up with books and questions.   _ Do you have family?  Friends? Will you talk to the police?  Can you read? Did you graduate? Do you think you could pass the equivalency test?  Why did you stop going to church? What are you going to do now? _

He didn’t talk to the police.  Steve already knew how little they cared about prostitutes, especially the queer ones.  They wouldn’t do a damn thing for him.

He did, however, pass the equivalency test, for all that was worth.  There still weren’t any jobs, even for high school graduates. For nearly two months Bruce let him sleep in the church at night and watched him leave during the day, lips pressed together and eyes concerned.  Steve wasn’t going out to turn tricks - he tried  _ once _ and panicked when he got down on his knees and he looked so pitiful knelt there crying that the guy just left the money, so street portraits it was - but Bruce didn’t know any of that.  And then, one spring night, he asked the question that changed everything.

_ Do you want to help people? _

It was all he’d ever wanted, and everything he’d never been able to do.  He couldn’t even help his Ma or his  _ own fucking self. _  And that,  _ that  _ had unleashed every rotten thing inside him.

By then, there were a lot of rotten things.

Bruce weathered it all with an expression that said he knew.  When Steve was done - when the horrible things were said, hymnals thrown, hair pulled, tears and snot wet on his face - Bruce sat down and told him his story.  How he’d grown up bad with a drunk father who beat him and eventually murdered his mother right in front of him ( _ I still see it, Steve, like I know you still see him).   _ That was terrible enough, but the crippling anger and self-loathing he described in the aftermath were things Steve knew intimately.  

Father Bruce didn’t grow up religious.  The church orphanage was his salvation. He wanted the church to be Steve’s.  He didn’t know how to tell him that he only came in that night because the other options were to freeze to death in an alleyway or take a leap off a bridge.  The other man had to know, though; Steve does remember the first thing he said when Bruce knelt down by the pew and asked him what was wrong.

_ I don’t want to live anymore, but I’m afraid if I kill myself I’ll never see my Ma again. _

Amazing, how you could hate something and still be bound to it.  To say Steve was resentful was an understatement. He tried to be kind about it, because Bruce had been kind to him.

But Bruce was persistent, and very, very smart.  Through gentle prodding and sacrificial honesty, he got Steve to talk.  Then to pray. Then to read through and talk about Biblical passages that had been most helpful to him.  After enough discussions about what it was  _ really _ about, it clicked.

Sure, priests were there to preach gospel, to uphold the Word of God and the dogma of the church, but they were meant to be helpers.  Guides. Advocates. Everything that Bruce had been for him. Everything he might be able to be for others, if he devoted himself to the church.

It was an easy decision after that.

Steve exhales and finds that his eyes are hot and a little full.  He  _ misses _ him.  He doesn’t miss that time - he’d turned his soul inside out those first few months, before he enrolled in the seminary - but he sure does miss the steady, unassuming presence of Father Bruce Banner.  

“Étienne?”

Steve jumps, coming up from the whirlpool of memories.  His heart beats fast, but it isn’t entirely from the fright; James is there in the doorway, shirtless, skin pink and clean.  Something’s not quite right, though. His head is tilted awkwardly, and with another moment’s examination, Steve can see why.  His hair is stuck in one of the plates of his arm.

“Can you…?” he asks, exasperated.

“Of course,” Steve replies, always ready to help.  He tries to focus on the practicals instead of thoughts that are neither priestly nor helpful.  Not the way James smells fresh out of the bath, or the way his wet hair looks laying across his shoulders and chest.  No, certainly not that. He’s just thinking about the fact that with his hair this long, it can’t be the first time James has accidentally trapped it in the metal seams.  

“Had to just cut it last time,” he grumbles, as if reading Steve’s mind.

“You could cut all of it.  Wouldn’t get stuck then,” Steve murmurs as he frowns at the plates, trying to map the way they move.  It’s an incredible piece of technology. He wonders if James can feel anything, but he isn’t brave enough to touch.  Not without asking.

“I don’t want to cut it.  It reminds me of home.”

Yes, that’s right.  Steve remembers him talking about the way his mother made him wear it long as a child, to escape the notice of whatever vampire was supposed to bite him.

“I think if you move your arm out and then back, I should be able to get it,” he says.  James does as he suggests, and Steve is able to ease the lock of hair out from between the metal edges.  He doesn’t let himself think about anything as he pushes it into place with the rest of his hair, which is draped over his right shoulder.  He tries to make himself step back, but he’s like a moth next to a bonfire; he wants to keep touching him. 

_ Lead me not into temptation... _

He can  _ feel _ James’s eyes on him and steadfastly avoids meeting them.

“Isn’t it driving you crazy?” James asks a moment later.

Steve’s heart all but stops.

“What?” he chokes out, feeling faint.

James reaches up to start a loose plait in his hair.  He’s so close that his elbows nearly brush Steve’s chest.

“I thought you’d want to know how things went the second I walked in the door.  Isn’t it killing you?”

Steve laughs, mostly out of relief.  He isn’t talking about  _ that _ .  

“I am dying inside a little,” he admits.  “But you just got h--” he pauses. “You just got back.  You deserve to rest.”

“The man who never rests, telling me to rest,” James muses.  He reaches out, tics Steve’s chin up with a knuckle so they’re eye to eye.  “26 November.”

Steve stares, trying to puzzle out what he means.  “What happens then?”

James smiles, and sweet merciful Christ, he’s beautiful.  “Our guests cross the Channel.”

His heart all but stops again, for an entirely different reason.  “Wait...you...you found someone?”

James nods.

Yes.   _ Yes.   _ Steve tries to think clearly but he can’t.  He’s happy and excited and  _ terrified _ .

“How much money do we need?” he breathes.  Oh, God, it’s only a month, how are they going to find the money in a month?

_ Well, you know a few ways, don’t you? _

It’s Alexander’s voice.  Steve clenches his teeth together, refusing to let it corrupt the impossible thrill of this moment.  

“No money,” James replies.  “We just need to be there on 26 November at 21:00.”

Steve could cry.  He might. All he manages is, “How?”

“That’s a long story that we can save for tomorrow.  You should sleep.”

Steve just barely keeps himself from laughing out loud.  There won’t be any sleep. His emotions feel too big for his mind and body to contain.  Just this once, he gives in. He steps forward and pulls James into a hug.

James returns it eagerly.  Strong, the way Sam used to hug.  Steve can’t let go. It feels so good.  The touch, the first good news in months, the simple fact that  _ James came back _ .  He hadn’t realized he was afraid he wouldn’t.

“Thank you,” he says into the other man’s shoulder.  He’s so unused to this unbridled happiness that it feels like he’s falling apart. 

James just squeezes him harder and sighs.

  
  
  


He tries to sleep.  Really, he does, because James looked so earnest when he suggested it.  But sleep has been elusive or interrupted by nightmares for days on end, and tonight is no easier.  Steve sits up after 45 minutes of his mind running in circles.

He’s overtired.  He can feel it, the slight hysteria, the erosion of his coping mechanisms.  There’s nothing to do tonight. He’s cleaned everything, drawn portraits of everyone downstairs and three of James’s maybe-daughter, read all the books he has, and he can’t go outside.  If he gets caught outside after curfew again, he knows he won’t make it back. He was lucky the first time around.

So he’s here, awake, trapped, mind feeling like it wants to unravel.  It just keeps returning to James. His smell, his touch. His  _ presence _ .  

He wants him so bad it’s like a physical ache.  The kind that’s deep and drilling, an abscessed tooth.  Only, it’s possible to pull a tooth. There’s nothing he can do to rip this wanting out.  It’s with him. It will  _ always _ be with him.

Father Bruce had never much cared.   _ It’s not a crime to admire the human form,  _ he said.   _ We are made in the image of God.   _ But Steve knows otherwise.  He’s been aware of it since he was a small child.  A man wanting a man is wrong; acting on it, even more so.  It’s a sickness. The work of the devil.

They made that clear at the seminary.  They didn’t share Bruce’s casual views.  Steve came to understand that some of the men there were like him, and had come to devote themselves to God either out of hope or as a last resort.  The instruction was always the same: repent, repent, repent. Purge your deviant desires.

And there’s nothing else to do, is there?

He swallows.  Usually he goes to this with relief, but it’s been a while, and something wicked in his chest says  _ no _ .  It’s immature and careless and made of the same things that let him kiss a boy when he was thirteen and fall eagerly into Sam at sixteen.  It was always wrong, but with Sam it was the most right it could ever be, and he’s terrified that James will make him feel the same. Like the sin was worth it.

The Lord had punished him for that arrogance.  Soundly.

He won’t make the same mistake twice.  Steve sinks down to the stone and gropes blindly for the discipline.  It’s cold and he can’t make himself remove more than his shirt. It hurts just the same, if he’s doing it right.

And he is, because tears spring to his eyes after the third blow.  It’s exhaustion, mostly, lowering his threshold. It’s okay. He wants it to stop.  He just wants it to stop so he doesn’t bring the Lord’s wrath upon himself again.

Why did God build him so weak?

_ Why _ ?   

He strikes again and it  _ burns,  _ he’s fracturing under the combined assault of his mind and the discipline, and then--

James.

“What the  _ hell _ are you doing?” he demands, eyes wide with alarm.  His hands are cold around Steve’s wrists. For once in his life, it doesn’t occur to him to fight.

“Repenting for my sins,” Steve grates from a dry throat.  The sting of the bruises on his back reverberates in his mind, an echo with nowhere to go.

“ _ What _ sins?” James asks, absolutely incredulous.

All Steve can do is laugh.  And at some point, it edges over into tears, and nothing is funny anymore.

  
  


He wakes totally disoriented, but somehow lacking the panic that goes along with that most of the time.  It’s still dark; there’s just enough candlelight to see James. He’s at the desk contemplating the sketchbook.

“You’re amazing, do you know that?”

Steve just inhales sharply.  Maybe it was a nightmare. No; his back is sore.  It throbs in time with his heartbeat.

James turns, the sketchbook still in his hands.  “It’s still not her, but...when I look at this one, it’s like she’s just out of reach.  It’s close.”

It’s the second sketch he did.  She’s a recklessly pretty child, face striking and hair messy.  As he watches, James sets the sketchbook down reverently and lifts himself out of the chair.  He goes down to his knees at the bedside so he can look Steve in the eye. Steve wilts under his gaze and turns to stare straight up at the ceiling.

“I have a lot of questions,” James says, soft.  “You don’t have to answer, but I’m still going to ask.”  

  
  


A lot is an understatement.  James wants to know everything there is to know about him.  Everything that’s formed him into this complex bundle of nerves.  He’s never met a man simultaneously so good and so tortured. He doesn’t understand.

He found his papers in the desk drawer earlier.  They do actually say Étienne was born in Amiens, and they also say that he’s only twenty-five.  So  _ young _ .  James doesn’t remember what it’s like to be that new.  Nor does he know what to do with the feeling that’s building inside him - the intense urge to protect him.  

The memory of the pain on his face and the tears in his eyes stabs between his ribs.

_ Looks like you’re a bit late for that. _

It’s true, he can’t protect anyone from their past.  But the future is a different thing. He can be here for that.

He sighs.  He forgot about the bruises on Étienne’s back for a time.  Some people like pain, and that’s their business, as far as James is concerned.  However, it couldn’t have been plainer that Étienne wasn’t deriving anything pleasurable from his self-punishment.  It’s something else. 

“Why were you hurting yourself?”

The blond’s muscles tighten.

“I told you,” he says, flat, tired, “punishment for my sins.”

James frowns so hard he feels like his face is cramping.  “Is kindness a sin in your religion? Patience? Bravery?”

“It’s common practice.”  Étienne is distant, so far retreated inside himself that he sounds like another person.  James isn’t going to get anywhere with this question. He has to change his approach.

“You were speaking another language in your sleep.  Not one I know.”

There’s a long pause.  Étienne picks nervously at his blankets.

“English,” he allows, barely audible. 

“Will you teach me?”

That gets Étienne to look at him.  It’s cautious, but he’s coming back.  “Yes,” he says after another minute, “if you teach me Romanian.”

James has to chuckle; it’s an absurd request.  “Why would you want to learn Romanian?”

“So I can talk to you,” he replies, guileless, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.  “That way you won’t feel so far away from home.”

Ah, fuck.  He can’t melt the way he wants to, even if that’s one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to him.  This  _ man _ .  He has no idea how good he is and it’s a crime.  He’s starting to think he can guess the source of all of this; the reckless altruism, the anger, the sleeplessness, the self-loathing.

This is the second time James has heard that name in Étienne’s nightmares.   _ Alexander _ .

“That’s...very thoughtful of you,” James says, around the bubble in his chest.  “I’ll teach you Romanian. Just remember, you asked for it.”

Étienne’s lips quirk.  “Same for you, for English.  It’s not as easy as you think.”

Nothing’s easy, these days.  James looks down. He doesn’t want to see the other man retreat again, and he knows sometimes it’s easier to be honest when you don’t have to look someone in the eye.

“You were talking about Alexander again.  I did understand that.”

Étienne makes a little sound, hurt and acknowledgment wrapped into one.

“This Alexander,” James says carefully, “does he still live?”

“I’m sure he does.”  There’s acrimony in his voice, pointed and so unlike him.  James is certain Alexander deserves it, though.

“If we ever cross paths, I might not be able to resist the urge to kill him.”

Finally, Étienne turns, curling on his side facing James.  James dares to make eye contact, and it’s him, undiluted, depth fit to drown in.  “I’m not sure I would stop you,” he whispers. He looks empty when he says it, like he can’t summon anything, hateful or holy or otherwise.

It takes everything James has not to interrogate.   _ What did he do?  Where does he live?  How can we make him suffer? _  That’s not what Étienne needs.  He tries so hard to be above those things.  And really, he doesn’t need the answers. The what and why and how don’t matter.  

He reaches out, slow so Étienne can see it, and brushes fingers across his cheek and temple when he doesn’t flinch.  His hair is fine and soft, spun gold on his fingertips.

“You asked me not to kill.  I’m trying. I’m doing it for you.”

Étienne opens his mouth, but holds when James makes an abortive gesture.  This isn’t about morals or right and wrong; they still aren’t on the same page with that, and it isn’t the time for a lecture.  

“I need you to do something for me,” James continues.  “I need for you not to hurt yourself. Please.”

Étienne looks pained.  Like it’s asking more than he can give.  The urge to kill this Alexander  _ burns  _ beneath his collar bones, and James has to wonder, not for the first time, if he really did change into something dark the day Brock bit him.  Maybe.

“How else am I supposed to repent?” Étienne asks in a tiny voice.

James desperately wants to say  _ you have nothing to repent for _ , but he doesn’t know that, not really, and Étienne obviously thinks he does.

“You keep doing what you’re doing with the Resistance,” he says instead, passion creeping into his voice.  “You keep saving the people they want to erase.”

“You’re the one saving them.  I’m just--”

James cuts him off.  “ _ No _ .  You were here before I ever had an  _ inkling _ of helping.  This is you. You’re the one taking the risk, you’re doing what’s right.  I know you’d lay down your life for anyone in this town. You even protected your enemy.  And you protect me, after what I did.” He feels a little crazy with this truth that Étienne doesn’t seem to know - that he’s  _ good _ .  Too good.  The words tumble out of him.

“When the Nazis had me, they didn’t just take my arm.  They took my sanity. They starved me, experimented on me, did things to my mind to make me lose myself.  And then they’d come in and say, soldier, if you eliminate this target, you can eat. And I was so hungry, so crazed, that I’d do it.  I did anything they wanted. I don’t have any idea how many people I killed for them.”

“That wasn’t you,” Étienne refutes instantly, sitting up, face furious and horrified at the same time.  “They tortured you! You weren’t in your right mind.”

“No, I wasn’t.”  Incredibly, James finds it within himself to smile.  “I don’t think I was fully back to myself until you punched me.  That doesn’t change anything, though. I still did it.” He reaches up to cup Étienne’s face again.  He’s blazing now, alight with that stubborn refusal to accept injustice. He’s beautiful. “All those things I did -  _ that’s  _ sin, Étienne.  Not whatever it is you think you have to atone for.”  

The priest sighs.  He closes his eyes and leans into the touch.  He’s warm, and James is glad he still has one hand that can feel.

“The book says otherwise,” Étienne murmurs.

“Sometimes books are wrong.”

He opens his eyes, and finally there’s humor in them, even if it is only a trace.  “Sometimes they’re right.”

“Agree to disagree,” James shrugs, removing his hand.  Any longer and things will get awkward, and he might not be able to stop himself from kissing him.  It just doesn’t seem like the right time. “Are you going to teach me English, or what?”

  
  


By sunrise, they can both struggle through the alphabet, count to ten, and introduce themselves in a new language.  And for good measure, they taught one another  _ fuck you  _ because according to Étienne, you’re supposed to learn how to curse first.  James can’t help himself; Étienne’s accent is  _ terrible  _ and he laughs at his butchered profanities.  

Étienne says, “Yours ain’t much better, pal.”  He doesn’t understand a word of it but he knows what he’s saying just by the tone.  He’s so glad this wry spitfire is back that he just laughs some more.

  
  


It doesn’t escape Steve’s notice that James took the discipline.  He has no plans to look for it. He’s come to realize that there’s too much at stake right now for him to be inflicting damage to himself.  If he needs to fight or run or anything else, he can’t risk being too sore or too slow. Besides, it doesn’t work. He can beat himself bloody day in and day out - he  _ has _ \- and it never goes away.  

He’ll be a sinner forever.  He was born like this; God  _ made _ him this way.  Why is a mystery, one he’ll never get an answer to, but he has to keep going.  It seems far less self-indulgent to repent by sabotaging evil and protecting the disenfranchised, like James suggested.  

That doesn’t mean he never feels the urge.  He does, and it’s powerful and sometimes it makes him feel like he needs to claw his skin off, but that solves nothing.  He doesn’t know why it’s taken him so long to realize that Father Bruce’s sage advice about rage should apply to his anger at himself, too.

Bruce had never once told him to self-flagellate.  That he learned at the seminary. But is it really much different from the fights?  The bite of the discipline on his back is the same as the fresh shock of a fist to the jaw.  It’s not normal to need that to sort out one’s brain. Then again, nothing has been normal since his mother passed.  Maybe he was never normal to begin with.

_ You’re thousands of miles from home, pretending to be French, preaching pacifism in one breath and fighting an underground war in another, all while living in a church with a vampire. _

Well.  That answers that.

  
  


James is smart.  He learns English quickly, voraciously, and he’s a good teacher, too, even if he does spend a quarter of their lessons laughing at Steve’s attempt at an accent.  Steve isn’t gifted when it comes to Romanian, but he’s keeping pace. He’s keenly aware that eventually, James will ask why he knows English. He isn’t sure what he’s going to do when that day comes.  He trusts James. He just dreads having to answer questions about his past with an intensity that makes his chest lock up.

One day, when they’re teaching one another words for the relationships between people and how to express affection, James gets a look on his face.  His eyes scan over Steve’s face, then lower for the briefest second, and back up to his eyes. There’s something in his glance that sets off an alarm bell.  Sure enough, a moment later James leans over and kisses him. On the  _ lips _ .  

Steve freezes.  It’s all he can do.  James’s lips are soft and warm, determined but somehow not demanding, and it feels  _ good _ .  He doesn’t want it to, but it does; desire creeps in hot prickles across his skin.  No one’s kissed him since the last time he was with Sam. He forgot how good it can be.  Alexander made him forget a lot of things.

_ Sluts like you aren’t here to be kissed. _

He feels sick with the memory, terrified and shaky but still turned on.  He  _ hates _ this feeling.  It’s all he ever felt with Alexander.   __

James pulls back.  Steve tries to catch his breath, his  _ sanity _ .  James isn’t Alexander.  He isn’t anything like him.  The kiss was a question, not a demand.  Relatively chaste, but the sentiment - and the  _ offer  _ \- is clear. 

He can feel James looking at him, waiting.  Steve is still so shocked that he’d just  _ kiss him  _ like that, without shame.  Without any hesitation at all.  What must it be like to just… not care?

He flounders for a response.  In the end, there’s only one way out.  Steve clenches his jaw and then blurts, “I took a vow of celibacy.”

The look of horror on the other man's face would be comical under different circumstances.

“ _ Why? _ ” James demands, appalled.

“Because it's required to be a priest.”

“It is?”

“For Catholics, yes.”

James can't fathom it.  He blinks a few times. “But  _ why? _ ”

“Because you're devoting yourself to God and his teachings. To purity of body and mind.  Earthly pleasures have no place in holy pursuits.”

Finally, James leans back a little, like he's reconsidering Steve’s mental stability, which really,  _ he should _ .  “You knew that, and still became a priest?”

“Yes.”

“But have you ever---”

“ _ Yes, _ ” Steve says, and this is good, this edge of annoyance.  It's taking his mind off the crippling urge to taste his lips again and the queasy remnants of fear in his stomach.

“So you know what it's like and you still wanted to…”

Oh, yeah, he knows what it's like.  It was good with Sam, and sometimes with a few kind regulars that cared for his pleasure, but at the time he thought two years as a whore, crowned by those last two months with Alexander, was more than enough sex for a lifetime.  He didn't think he'd ever want it again.

“Yes,” he responds, trying to keep his voice neutral and probably just ending up flat.  “I wanted to take the vow, and I also want to keep it.”

James stares at him for a good long time.  Steve has no idea what’s going on in his head.  His own is swimming with too many things to comprehend.  After a while, the vampire’s face relaxes and he pouts. Then he licks his lips and says, in perfect English, “It’s your funeral.” 

It startles a laugh out of Steve, one he sorely needs.  They were talking about dark humor just yesterday, and something obviously stuck.   He knows that it shouldn’t be so easy. Feelings should be hurt. But James takes it in stride, reapplying himself to the lesson, and there isn’t a trace of awkwardness for the rest of the night.

Not even at the end, when his brow creases and he asks, “It’s not breaking any vows if I kiss you on the cheek, is it?” 

Against his better judgment, Steve says, “No.”  After all, cheek kisses are a fairly standard greeting here.    

It’s a little kiss, nothing, but close to his ear, and he flushes all over again with want.  James hugs him tight, and this time he’s the one who doesn’t seem to want to let go. After the other day, when he confessed what the Nazis did to him, Steve is inclined to think he needs this touch just as much as him.  So they hug for too long, resolutely ignoring the impropriety.

“ _ Te voi proteja _ ,” James murmurs, almost too low for Steve to catch.

“What’s that mean?” he asks, trying not to think about how easy it would be to fall asleep against this shoulder.

“Don’t worry.”

Fool that he is, he thinks that’s what it means, until much later.

  
  
  


Celibacy.  James tries to wrap his brain around it, but he can’t.  He’s always liked sex. He supposes he could live without it if he needed to, but that need has never presented itself.  He wonders if he’s just wired for hedonism and Étienne isn’t...or if Étienne doesn’t like sex. Much like some people like pain, some others might have no interest in sex, and that is also not really his business.

But Étienne’s heartbeat picked up when he kissed him, and his lips yielded.  He kissed back for a few seconds. He isn’t immune to lust, James thinks. Then his eyes widen.  Is  _ that _ the sin he thinks warrants punishment?  Hasn’t anyone told him that taking a vow doesn’t make one immune to temptation? 

What  _ is  _ this religion, to punish people for natural feelings and urges?  For one of the few sources of pleasure in the world these days? Or  _ any _ days?  He pouts again, and not playfully like he had before.  

Of course, the thing he’s not thinking about is what happened at the start, and after Étienne kissed back.  The way his body tensed,  _ froze _ , his heart pounding rabbit-quick.  James knows panic. He knows it intimately, in himself and in the people who had the time to realize what was happening to them when he fed.

Étienne was afraid.  Not of him; that’s been made abundantly clear enough times to bruise a tiny part of his creature-of-the-night ego.  He can put it together even though he doesn’t want to. The nightmares, the flinching, expectation of and resignation to violence, self-blame… he’s been abused.

James sighs.  Why would anyone  _ do _ that to Étienne?  Who would be that evil?

He’s learned more about evil in the last year than in the three hundred plus before that.  There’s plenty in every corner of the Earth, and it touches whoever it wants. Being kind and good isn’t enough to avoid it.  What’s most amazing is that Étienne is still kind and good. James didn’t manage that after Hydra, and probably not before, if he’s honest.  

He’s so lucky that he’s here.  He still wants Étienne, but if he can’t drive him out of his mind with pleasure and the force of his feelings, he can at least protect him.  Stand beside him. The way he bends into touch like a flower seeking sun tells James that he’s been alone too long. The way James wants to give that touch says he’s got company in loneliness.

It can work.

Maybe.

Probably.

_ Please, let this work. _

  
  


It’s his turn, that night, to wake up screaming.  Étienne is there when the hellscape shatters, tugging frantically at his foot from the ladder.  He’s wisely out of reach of the metal arm and any other flailing appendage.

And James  _ knows _ he’s not on that table.  Zola isn’t here, or Schmidt or Zemo or any of the other cold-eyed Hydra zealots.  But his body doesn’t feel like his own as the paralysis of sleep slowly fades, and that takes him right back.

He can’t help himself.  He  _ sobs. _  He wants his arm, his peace of mind, the memories their machines forced out of his head and replaced with hours and days and months of torture.  He wants to twist time and avoid it all. He’d give a lot to never have known that kind of helplessness.

Étienne crawls up into the apse when it’s clear he won’t get clocked for the effort.  James folds into him gratefully. The blond murmurs susurrations of comfort in different languages, French running into English into Romanian and a fourth James doesn’t know.  His voice is hypnotic and his body warm; James clings, too tired to be ashamed. The priest is his only anchor. He’s not letting go.

When he’s emotionally spent, Étienne lays him down.  He cups his cheek, and for a moment James thinks it’s going to be okay.  But then the feel of the floor beneath him pushes the panic back up into his throat -- it’s the table, he’s on the table, he has to  _ get away-- _

He knows.  Somehow he knows.  Étienne gets them both down the ladder without anyone breaking their neck and then he’s in Étienne’s bed.  It’s not soft, exactly, but it’s not the floor, and it certainly isn’t the table. It’s full of his smell. If he wasn’t so fucking distraught, he might have been able to enjoy that.

It’s enough, this kindness, but then he slides in behind James and cradles him.

“Is this okay?” he asks, soft, voice cracking a little.

James nods, feeling tears prick his eyes again.

“Swear it...wasn’t a ploy...to get you in bed,” he says around hitches.  There’s a soft huff of breath against the back of his neck as Étienne chuckles.  James wants to snake around in his arms and kiss him until the end of the goddamn world.  

“Do you want to talk about it?” Étienne asks, after a while.

“No,” James whispers.

“It helps.  When you’re ready.”

He imagines they’ll both be ready around the same time, which is never.  James burrows himself as deeply into the man and the bed as he can. It takes an hour, but he’s able to fall back into the oblivion of sleep.

  
  
  


Étienne isn’t there when he wakes up, and he’s a little disappointed.  He wants to experience the closeness of last night without the emotional upheaval.  But it’s probably better this way; James knows he could break Étienne’s will if he tried hard enough, and maybe Étienne knows that, too. 

It’s selfish, but he can’t help it.  He just…. _ wants _ .

_ But you can’t have. _

He blows out a breath.  No. He can’t. Étienne has been good to him, more patient and kind than he deserves, and if this belief in his God is what keeps him going, what keeps him strong in the face of whatever he suffered, James isn’t going to derail him.  Not for his libido. There are many kinds of love, and longing is a torture he can withstand. He’s had a lot of practice. Especially in this bleak fourth century of his.

_ Guess we’ve both taken a vow of celibacy _ .

James sighs and presses his face into the sheets.  This will probably be the only time he’s in his bed.  He’d best commit it to memory. He lays there, miserable but with his mind made up.

Maybe it’s a good thing.  He has to stay focused. The people in the basement need to be the priority, and it’s about time James got himself together and figured out how the hell he’s going to get them from here to Carteret without being caught.  He and Étienne have talked about it without reaching any solid conclusions, other than that going on foot should be the last resort.

There’s a half-formed plan involving forged papers from Alain and a truck.  Trouble is, they don’t have a truck, and even if they did, there needs to be some way to conceal the people being transported.  It seemed so simple that day in Carteret. He just had to get them there. But not long after he got back, reality set in.

What they’re trying to do is incredibly risky and dangerous.  James knows he’ll survive. He  _ always _ survives.  But these people are fragile.  They’ve been stuck in a 50 square meter room for a year, living on rations and whatever Étienne could coax from his garden - which he has to admit, is better fed than most.  Even so, they won’t be able to run like him, or withstand the cold like him, and they certainly won’t be immune to bullets. 

He sighs again and rolls onto his back to contemplate the ceiling.  That’s when Étienne steps in to check on him.

“Hey,” he says, voice rich and gentle.  It washes over him like the year’s first taste of homemade  țuică.  Oh, this really is going to be torture.

“Hey,” James responds, because he can’t just stare and wallow in the wake of his decisions.

“Are you feeling better this morning?”

“Yes.”  He brings himself vertical; he has to get up sometime.  “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to be,” Étienne says, twining his fingers together.  At James’s quizzical look, he amends, “Better, I mean. You don’t have to say you are if you’re not.”  He shakes his head. “It’s been years, and I still...and you, you  _ just _ got away.  You don’t have to pretend to be fine.”  

Always affording things to others that he won’t for himself.  Has he stopped to breathe since his own trauma? Doubtful. And yet here he is, pulling kindness from a well that should have gone dry a long time ago.

“I’m the best I’ve been,” James says, and tries to show the truth of it in his smile.   _ And maybe the best I’ll ever be, here with you.  _

Slowly, Étienne nods.  Then he shifts his shoulder from the doorframe and stands up straight. “All right.  We’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

He’s disappeared down the hallway before James fully processes what he means.   _ We. _  Him and his six boarders.  They’ve been referring to them as ‘our guests’ for a few weeks now, but in truth, James has never laid eyes on the people.  He doesn’t know their names. The less anyone knows, the better - that’s common sense from an espionage perspective - but that isn’t really why they’ve been segregated.

One of the first things he’d asked of James was not to harm his guests.  Offering himself up for bloodletting was as much a kindness as it was a way to shield the people downstairs.  This - this is  _ trust.   _ Not just to help them, but to know them.

He fights tears of a different variety, then washes his face, cleans his teeth, and puts his hair and clothing to rights.  Then he goes downstairs, and he’s received warmly.

_ Bucky, the man who found a way. _

_ Bucky, the man who’s going to lead you to safety. _

_ Bucky, who I couldn’t have done this without. _

And the funny thing is, James wouldn’t have done any of it if not for one stubborn priest who saw good in him when he thought Hydra had siphoned it all away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Te voi proteja - I will protect you  
> țuică - a Romanian plum liquer


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nazis begin to crack down on the Resistance, Steve's self-control is tested in more ways than one, and an ally emerges just in time.

Oskar looks worse every time Steve sees him.  Tired, and hollow, like one of those molded chocolate figurines.  Outwardly sturdy, but one impact, one focused bit of pressure, and he’d crumble.  That doesn’t bode well for what Steve needs.

He’s going to ask anyway.

Oskar just sits in the confessional.  He doesn’t say anything. Just sits and breathes, like this is the only bit of respite he’s had in weeks.  Maybe it is.

WIth that in mind, Steve stays quiet.  Oskar will talk if and when he wants. Father Bruce was good at this; he can be, too.

Finally, Oskar takes a breath and opens his mouth.  “It’s been...bad...since the Resistance killed that officer in Nantes.”

That happened in October, when James was away.  Steve expected the worst, and the worst probably did happen in Nantes, he imagines, but Champsecret stayed quiet.  Nantes isn’t far, though. It’s possible Oskar has been there, forced to assist in the retribution for the slain officer.

Steve can’t say he wholeheartedly approves of the Resistance’s tactics, but he’s not foolish enough to think there won’t be killing on both sides.  Not anymore. Not since Matthieu.

“They’re going to crack down on the Resistance.  Known members and anyone they deem suspicious. Rumor has it the Fuhrer will make an official statement soon.”

The meaning is clear enough.   _ Don’t be suspicious. _  Might be too late for that, though, Steve muses darkly.

“There will be surprise inspections.  You are on the list. If they find  _ anything _ ….” he trails off.   “Natzweiler. In the Vosges.”

“Can you give me any idea of when?” Steve asks, already knowing the answer.  If there was a set time, Oskar would have volunteered the information.

“No.  The Kommandant is keeping things to himself.  Not even his mistress knows.”

His mistress is a French woman.  Not from this town, but close enough; the people regard her with the disgust one would expect for a traitor.  But Steve can’t help but think of Mademoiselle Gamora’s game up in Caen, and wonders if maybe Champsecret’s clemency is in part thanks to this mistress.  He thinks, also, of what it is to be the paramour. He’s been there, a secret guilty pleasure to men of society, and it always amazed him what he was privy to.  As if he himself was complicit in every flaw and bad behavior, simply by nature of the sin already committed. 

The information he has on Alexander alone…

Steve swallows and retreats to verse.

_ Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” _

Yes.  It’s for the Lord to punish that man.  It’s for Steve to forgive. He suspects he’ll be working on that one for the rest of his life.

“I’ll be ready,” Steve says softly.  “Thank you.”

“It’s just a warning,” Oskar replies, grim.  “I can’t do anything if they decide to take you, or anyone else.”

“Then do this.”

“What?”

Steve pauses, then plunges on.  “I need a truck, petrol, and three days.”

Oskar makes a sound that can’t be mistaken for anything other than irritation.  “And where do you imagine I’m hiding that?”

“At your headquarters.”

“Didn’t I just say nothing suspicious?” he pleads.

“It won’t be suspicious if we play it right.”

“No truck,” Oskar says firmly, like he’s lost his mind for even asking.  Steve can see the outline of him on the other side of the screen; he’s rubbing his face with his hands.  “You’re going to get yourself killed, Père.”

“I’d rather meet God this way than in safety, if my soul’s in the balance.”

Oskar’s breath is even but laden with words unsaid.  At last he ventures, “Do you have family, Père?”

“No.  None that live.”  Although...he is starting to find it difficult to imagine his life without James in it, and that is its own kind of terrifying. 

“That’s why you can afford to be brave.”

Steve shakes his head.  It’s more that he can’t afford  _ not  _ to be brave.  “I fear for every family, Oskar.   _ That _ is why I’m brave.”

“I can get you the petrol,” he sighs.  “May God watch over us long enough for you to use it.”

_ Amen. _

  
  
  


Three days later, Oskar comes at night, in a truck.  It’s pitch black, a new moon, and the dark feels like a friend.  That’s when Steve learns to siphon gasoline. It occurs to him that he now knows this, but he doesn’t even know how to  _ drive _ .  Does James?  Or had they each assumed the other knew what they were doing?

“ _ Mein Gott _ ,” Oskar mutters, when he tells him.  “Get in.”

He writes down what Oskar teaches him, complete with diagrams, but he’s far from confident that he’ll be any good at it when the time comes.   _ If _ the time comes.  They only have another two weeks, and no truck.  If nothing materializes in two or three days, James and the others will have to go on foot, and Steve  _ hates _ the very idea.  It would be slow, uncertain, and incredibly vulnerable.  Beatrix and Alphonse are here precisely because they couldn’t make the journey over the Pyrenees; Beatrix has a bad hip and Alphonse a bad heart.  He knows the mind and body are capable of incredible endurance when there’s no other option, but they would slow the rest of the group down, and James is one person.  He can’t protect six people all on his own.

He’s already lost the argument about accompanying them, and oh, was it an argument.  James won’t hear of it and he’s equal to the task of spitting and hissing at Steve’s stubbornness in a way that no one’s been in a long time.  If he’s supposed to be avoiding suspicion, leaving town isn’t the way to do it, and while that’s obvious on a purely rational level, Steve can’t make himself less invested.  He wants to see the boat out of the harbor. He wants to know they’re safe.

James suggested arming the little group.  There are still enough knives and axes about, but what are they against machine guns?  Or even pistols? The cold grip of anxiety starts in his chest when he thinks of them being caught.  Steve breathes deeply, trying to control it.

He needs to  _ move _ , get air, but he can’t.  They’ve all been warned that anyone caught outside after curfew will be shot on sight.  The church is suffocating, stone walls like the hands of God pressing down on him. It isn’t often that he chafes at this; the church, the priesthood, it’s been a lifeline, but sometimes the vestments feel wrong on his skin, the rules and ideas too small for him.  He knows he’s supposed to find comfort in scripture. He  _ knows _ .

Steve tries.  He reads until the words blur together and he’s so tired his eyes burn.  Then, like he used to after the discipline, he lays down on the cool stone and lets it wick the fever of helplessness from his skin until he falls asleep.

  
  


 James checks on him before sunrise.  He frowns like he always does when Étienne is on the floor.  It happens at least twice a week, and he’s come to understand that it means it was a bad night.  He never even changed into nightclothes; he’s curled up in his cassock, rosary clenched in his hand.

The holy book is next to him, open, the red ribbon marking the page.  There’s one line in particular where the ink is a little blurry, as if a finger’s run beneath it many times.

_ For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul? _

Hitler doesn’t seem terribly interested in the answer.

  
  
  


It’s only another three days before James asks the dreaded question.  They haven’t even really begun the language lesson. James needed to feed yesterday, and he’s been what Steve would call  _ exuberant _ all day.  Aglow during breakfast, humming to himself, generally being pleasant and helpful until he said he was going for a walk in the woods and was gone for  _ four hours _ and came back dirty, out of breath, and with leaves and twigs in his hair.

His cheeks are still a little pink with windburn.  It makes his eyes pop, now that they’re blue again.  Though he’s still very handsome when his eyes are red.

Steve swallows and wonders if they’re better off just taking a break tonight.  It seems that their attention has suffered, mutually. That’s when James speaks.

“How did you learn English, anyway?”

He takes a breath.  He’s simultaneously spared and damned in the next moment, because a loud pounding sounds at the front door and they can hear someone shouting in German.

“Shit,” James whispers, in perfect English.

“Câcat,” Steve agrees, heart in his throat.  They stand up at the same time, Steve clumsy with adrenaline, and James reaches out to squeeze his elbow for a quick second.  They’ve practiced for this, gone over exactly what needs to happen. But Steve knows there are a lot of variables, and most of them are outside his control.  They need luck. They need  _ favor. _

_ Please, Lord… _

And that’s selfish, he knows it, but God, please…

“ _ Allez _ ,” James says.

He exhales and pushes all the fears and emotions back behind the wall of thoughtless obedience that he now knows is pure dissociation.  He read about it in some of the books about counseling one’s distressed parishioners at the seminary. It’s the only way he’ll get through this without getting himself killed - a skill perfected in the cold halls of Alexander Pierce’s penthouse.  He looks at James one more time, in case it’s the last, and then goes. 

  
  
  


He pulls the cord beneath the holy water, although James is already in the basement.  Then he unlocks the heavy doors and lets the Nazis in. They shout at him entirely in German, some of which he understands, but most of which he doesn’t.  Two of them force him down on his knees. The barrel of a gun is pressed to the back of his head.

Steve breathes.  Keeps still. Listens to the blood in his ears.  All around him, the soldiers tear things apart.

There’s nothing to find.  Not upstairs. Steve burned his American papers and anything else incriminating, and his art is wherever James hid it.  Everything valuable is downstairs.

A moment later his head is yanked back roughly and one of the soldiers is snarling in his face, “ _ Was ist unten? _ ”  At Steve’s blank stare, he resorts to broken French.  “ _ En bas?  Quoi?” _

Steve looks him straight in the eye and says, “ _ Rien.” _

He doesn’t know why they bother to ask.  In another second he’s being dragged up and forced to the stairs so roughly that he can barely keep his feet, let alone duck when he gets to the spot where the ceiling is too low.  He cracks his head hard enough for his vision to waver, and they laugh as they avoid that same spot. They  _ laugh _ .

There’s a thin trail of blood kissing the line of his eyebrow and temple when he gets to the bottom.  It’s hot and ticklish and thank God James fed yesterday. The cellar yawns empty, cool, musty with the smells of old paper and earth.  

There is, as promised,  _ rien _ .  Nothing they can see.  Everything precious is hidden in the widened crawlspaces behind the two tremendous bookshelves that hold a century’s worth of old Bibles and hymnals.  They look too heavy to move, not without risking mortal injury. They would be if the left one wasn’t on a hinged sliding track.

Père Govinden showed him when he first arrived.  The old man found it ingenious and amusing at turns, because it had been put in during the Great War to protect the wine in the event of bombings.  The  _ wine _ .  

It’s protecting a lot more than that, now.  Steve keeps his head down. He won’t let his eyes linger and give it away.

It seems like their inspection takes a century.  He hears the thump of books hitting the floor. The soldiers cough from the dust and give up.  They growl in German, and Steve hopes they’re saying things like  _ nothing here  _ and  _ waste of time _ .

“Priest,” a sharp voice barks.  His French is like being hit with a mace.

Steve looks up.  Cold eyes are on him, determined to find fault.  “Yes, sir.”

“What do you know about forged ration cards?”

Fuck.  “ _ Rien _ .”  That’s his refrain tonight,  _ rien rien rien. _

The soldier lashes with the coiled intent of a cobra, boot catching him in that unforgettable spot that paralyzes the diaphragm.  Steve folds over in pain, unable to stop himself from gasping for breath that won’t come. He’s experienced this before but it never gets less painful, less  _ terrifying.   _ He wheezes for air and digs his fingers into the earthen floor.

“I’m going to ask you again.   _What_ ,” and the boot lands in his ribs this time, pushing a pained cry out of him, “do you _know_ ,” again, same spot, _crack_ , “about _forged_ _ration cards_?”  He accents each word with another kick, and on the last one there’s a _shift;_ not for the first time, Steve sees actual stars _._

They don’t know him.  They don’t know how pain clarifies everything.

“Nothing,” he gasps, with the same kind of delirious ecstasy that used to push taunts and ill-advised comebacks out of his throat when he was picking fights.  “I know nothing.  _ Please _ .”  

Another soldier speaks, low and fast.  Steve can’t pick out more than a word or two.  Whatever he says gets the first one to stop the assault on his ribs.  It’s not over yet, though; the sole of a polished black jackboot settles on top of Steve’s hand.  The soldier presses just enough for it to start to hurt. It’s small in comparison to his ribs, but the threat - the  _ power _ \- is there.

“And nobody’s been whispering in your confessional about it, hmm?”

_ Only your own.  _

“No,” he pants.  Every breath hurts.  He could be a kid in an alley in Brooklyn again, if not for everything that’s at stake and the fact that he can’t fight back.  Not with his fists.

“Listen closely, Father.”  The pressure on his hand increases.  The bones creak. “You will have services on Sunday only, and they will be monitored.  You will submit your sermons to one of us beforehand for approval. You will encourage the people to cooperate.  If you deviate from this you will be arrested and deported. Is that clear?”

Steve nods into the dirt, biting at his lips to keep from saying something that will get him shot on the spot.  There are a lot of options to choose from, and if it was him alone, he would rather be shot than agree to this. But it isn’t just him.

The boot crushes down harder on the long bones of his hand.  They’re easy to break. He’s done it before, simple as an ill-aimed punch; like this, one good stomp would snap them.

“I  _ said _ , is that clear?” the Nazi snarls.

“Yes,” Steve replies, willing himself not to squirm.  “Sir.”

The pressure on his hand eases and he hears the crunch of boots as the soldier steps back.  Then they’re filing up the stairs, grumbling and joking in equal turns. The man who broke his ribs calls back over his shoulder, “Looking forward to your sermon, Father!”  Most of them laugh - most, not all, there are two with purposely impassive faces - and in another minute they’re gone, and  _ holy fuck  _ do his ribs hurt.

Steve lays still, knowing it will be excruciating to move.  The church is silent and looming all around him. It’s times like these where it all feels like a skin he’s wearing.  The Church would have him be martyred, to die before diluting or betraying the word of God. However, the church of life, which he’s lived by for better or for worse, has only one refrain:  _ survive _ .  

_ You have to get up, Rogers.  Do the perimeter check. Nobody comes out of hiding until you know they’re really gone.  Get up, get up. _

He pushes to his knees and manages to bite off most of the groan of pain.  It isn’t the worst he’s endured. Not by half. Still, he can’t stand all the way straight when he does make it to his feet, not without feeling like he’s going to vomit.

Thankfully, the soldiers are gone.  He limps back down the stairs, takes two Bibles off the bookshelf, and knocks on the wood in the pattern they agreed on.  Instantly he hears whispers from within, and he backs up.

James is the first one out.  He gasps, face horrified. 

“What did they--those  _ bastards.” _

  
  


He’ll understand the reaction later, when he sees himself in the mirror.  Head wounds do bleed. James looks furious, and like he’d like to lick the blood straight off his skin.  It’s...well, that look, that  _ energy _ , the knowledge that James still wants to swallow him whole even after he turned him down...he’ll probably dream about it.  There’s a little comfort in the fact that James might, too. Sinners, both. Misery loves company. 

His head is pounding and his ribs are better left unconsidered.  There’s no aspirin, hasn’t been for a long time, and it’s too early for snow to pack against his sore spots.  The only thing he can do is live with it. 

Of course tomorrow’s Sunday.  Steve has to assume they’ll come by before mass to look over his sermon.  He doesn’t usually write them down, but he’ll have to scrape something together.  It isn’t just the pain that makes it a monumental task. 

James watches him as he struggles.

“How am I supposed to--” he starts, dropping the pencil.  “I don’t  _ do _ this.”

“Do what?” James asks, pupils large in the candlelight.

“Cater to bullies.”  Steve cradles his aching skull.  “I can’t.”

“Sometimes, I think to myself, I can’t resist,” James says, leaning forward.  “I have to have more. I can’t do it. I can’t wait.” His eyes close, and the struggle is obvious.  “I want it. I  _ need _ it.”  He’s talking about blood, but maybe he’s also talking about something else, this thing that exists between them.  Steve is less afraid of it now that it’s out in the open. Nothing about James frightens him. Not anymore.  

James opens his eyes and spears him.  “But you know what? It’s not my choice.  What I want - what I  _ am _ doesn’t matter.  This is how it must be, because I made a promise to you and to myself.”

Steve lets out a bitter laugh.  “Don’t compare your self-control to me giving in to the Nazis.”

“You’re forgetting that you’ve thrown insults, wine bottles, and punches at an immortal demon,” James deadpans.  “I know what you  _ really _ want to be doing to those Nazis.”

Steve flushes and looks down at his hands.  “It’s...I’m not a very good priest.”

“You’re the best one I’ve ever known.”

“Yeah?  And how many have you known?”  

“Not many,” James admits with a smile.  Steve has to smile, too. It’s a fleeting thing.  James reaches across the table to take his hand.

“Look, doing what they want on the surface doesn’t mean you’ve given in.  You’re still fighting them in every way you can.” His face goes distant for a moment, but he shakes himself and comes back to Steve.  “Sometimes it’s a long game.”

It sure is.  They’re already a year and half into the war with no end in sight.  The last one was four and a half years; who knows how long this one will drag.  What’s certain is that it will get worse before it gets better. Steve knows that.  One day he won’t be able to stop something, the way he wasn’t able to stop them from taking Rabbi Fleury or killing Matthieu, and it will gut him.  And he’s sitting here worried about a sermon.

It’s not like he has to glorify them.  He just has to play it safe. The people will understand.  It’s a miracle he’s been allowed to preach unsupervised this long, anyway.  The Germans allow little bits of normalcy to try to keep the people from rising against them, but the unrest is already more than they want.  It will get worse before it gets better, and nothing Steve says in church will change that.

He exhales, squeezes James’s hand, and writes a sermon. 

 

There’s a noticeable bruise on his face in the morning.  Steve examines it with some fascination; it’s been a while.  He remembers how the girls sometimes covered their bruises up with makeup.  It always made him angry, that erasure of what had been done to them. He knows why, though.  Bruises made them too human to their sources of income.

He’s not going to hide.  They’ll know. His bruised face and empty sermon will tell them everything.  

His ribs are bruised, too, dark red and purple.  Every breath hurts. Still, it’s bearable. It has to be.

James comes in while he’s looking at himself.  Vanity’s not usually his failing, but there’s a first time for everything, Steve supposes.  In his heart of hearts, he likes the way James’s lips curl into a growl at the sight of the blemish, so stark against his pale skin.  He likes the expression that promises vengeance whether Steve approves or not. Is it strange, for one so deeply flawed to tell others how they should live their lives?

James steps close.  He’s red-cheeked and runny-nosed, just returned from outside.  It’s a clear day but a brutal wind is blowing, and it’s stolen the sun-kiss from his skin, leaving him raw.  It’s one of the increasing number of times he forgets James isn’t quite human.

He lifts his hands, slow, and presses them gently to Steve’s side.  They’re ice cold. Goosebumps bloom over Steve’s skin for ten different reasons.  It hurts and feels so good at the same time, and want is a thick fist in his stomach.  

He wants those hands all over him.  Cold, hot,  _ anything _ .  He wants James’s mouth on his neck.  He wants his body between his thighs.  Want, want, want.

He’s so weak.  Always has been.

_ No one is without faults,  _ Father Bruce would have said.  A common, if indulgent, reprise that didn’t make it past the door of the seminary.

James keeps his hands there until the chill is entirely absorbed by the contusion.  He looks up, and if there had been desire there, Steve would have kissed him. But it’s all concern in his eyes, and he says,

“I’m going to steal some aspirin for you.  Or something stronger.”

And Steve can’t even muster an admonition. 

  
  
  


He gets through the least meaningful thing he’s ever preached, though it isn’t easy.  He loathes the feeling of cowardice that overtakes him even more than he loathes the smug Nazi in the front row.  It’s immediately apparent that the congregation understands what’s happened. They’re silent and still, as if a sigh or cough might shatter something.

But, true to form, Laure approaches at the end of mass.  There’s someone trailing her besides the usual entourage of her children.  He’s not familiar - definitely not from town - but her body language is that of trust.  He looks pleasant enough, this man, non-threatening but unmistakably astute. The still-waters-run-deep type. 

“Père Étienne,” she says, “I’d like you to meet my brother, Clément.”

“Bonjour,” Steve greets, ducking his head.  She’s mentioned a brother before, quite fondly.

Clément nods and offers a smile.  There’s an unforced warmth in it, though Steve suspects he’s only getting a quarter of what he shows to Laure or his nieces and nephews.

“He wants to join the congregation,” Laure goes on.  “We’ll need to go to your office and fill out the forms.”

Clément may very well want to join, but he’s positive that isn’t what this is about.  The balls on this woman. Steve wishes he were half as brave. He can play along, though.  After that feeble sermon he needs to feel like he’s fighting back.

He flags down the Nazi that sat through church; the man looks bored out of his mind, but it’s warmer in here than outside and he obviously has orders to stay until everyone else leaves.

“This man wishes to join the congregation.  There’s some paperwork involved. May I bring him to the office?” Steve asks, the picture of humble compliance.

“How long will it take?”

“Twenty minutes or so,” he replies, knowing he’ll get less, if he gets anything at all.

“You have ten,” the Nazi sneers.

That’ll do.

  
  
  


“He’s not joining the congregation,” Laure says, without preamble.  “Actually, he’s leaving.”

Steve blinks.  “What?”

“He’s taking the children to his farm.  It’s safer for them there. There aren’t any soldiers stationed, it’s not a town.”

“You should go, too,” Steve says, remembering what Oskar warned him about.  Laure’s boldness may yet get her in trouble.

She snorts and ignores him.  Laure puts her hand over his on the desk and speaks deliberately, like he’s slow.

“They’re leaving Wednesday.  He’s taking them in his truck.”

Oh.   _ Oh. _  In his  _ truck _ .  Dear Lord.  Is this…?

Steve flounders.  He can’t help but stare at Clément, who stares back as if it’s all a given.  Steve doesn’t know him from Adam, but if he’s anything like Laure, he knows exactly what he’s getting into - or he’s been neck deep in it all along.

They need more time.  Laure doesn’t know about Carteret, about the 26th of November.  There’s been no safe time or place to get into details. But she’s never forgotten the people downstairs and the fact that they need to get out.  For the second time that day, he wants to kiss someone. For the second time, he doesn’t.

He has to think.  There’s got to be a way to convey what he needs to say without saying it.  Without betraying what this is really about.

“Will you be traveling by way of Caen?” he asks carefully.  “The cathedral of St. James is beautiful.”

“I’ve heard that,” Clément says without missing a beat.

Encouraged, Steve goes on.  “I used to pass through on the way to the beaches in Carteret and Barnes-sur-Mer as a child.”

“Too cold for the beach now.  But I’m sure those are wonderful memories.”

They are, except it’s Coney Island in his memories, sparkling, frenetic, a hive of everything good.  He feels unexpectedly choked up, both at the first real wave of homesickness that’s hit him since leaving New York and at the unflinching courage of a stranger.

“They are,” Steve breathes.

“I’ll come by Wednesday,” Clément says, “and you can tell me what to see in Caen.” 

  
  
  


When he explains later that morning, James lets out a torrent of Romanian that Steve doesn’t understand and then lifts him off the ground with the force of his hug.  Steve nearly blacks out from the pain in his ribs.

Then it’s all, “Oh  _ fuck, merde _ , fuck, I’m sorry!” and James makes him take the laudanum he swiped.  Steve spends the rest of his day dozing or watching flowers and vines that don’t really exist spreading across the ceiling.  But even in opium’s grip, he knows that this is no Garden of Eden.

He stumbles out of bed when he realizes, belatedly, that he needs to feed his flock.  It’s already done, though. James took care of everything.

“Bucky to the rescue,” he says with a sheepish smile.  “Unless you’ve got broken ribs.”

“Actually,” Steve replies, touching his side, ”I think you might have put something back where it belongs.”

A stern look crosses James’s face.  “On that theme, you should go back to bed.”

“But  _ Wednesday _ \--”

“Is not tomorrow.”

There’s no way he’ll sleep, too much on his mind, and it’s just occurred to him that James will be going with them on Wednesday.  He’ll be left behind to wonder, completely alone for the first time in nearly a year. The church will feel so empty. Not to mention he’ll be wrecked by constant anxiety, not knowing if they’re all right or if anyone will come back to him.

James must see it on his face.  “You have to rest now,” he says, gentling, “because I know you won’t when we’re out there.”

It’s nice to be known like that.  Comforting to be seen through, and seen  _ to _ .  He lets James goad him back to bed and dose him up with more laudanum (half as much as before).  It’s amazing how the medicine just makes it like pain doesn’t exist. Steve understands how people could get addicted to this.

As he’s sinking into the pleasant numbness, he looks up at James and cuts a tiny smile.

“While you’re gone I can make a secret newsletter that says everything I  _ really _ want to be saying in my sermons.”

The brunet raises his eyebrows.  “Try it, and you won’t have to worry about the Nazis.   _ I’ll _ kill you.” 

The little smile turns into a big one, and James makes an annoyed sound, realizing he’s being played.

“You’re not funny,” he chastises, eyes crinkling in spite of the sentiment.  “Sleep.”

  
  
  


Just before he drifts off completely, he feels the graze of knuckles on his cheek.  Maybe it’s the drugs or the concussion or the stress, but he thinks to himself, _ why is it so wrong? _  And he could hold on to the thought, maybe, if he wanted to, but he doesn’t.  He  _ can’t. _

  
  
  


The thought holds on to him.

Tuesday night finds him electric, unable to sit still or chase anything from his head.  His hands shake when he tries to seat the needle so James can feed before he goes. They had agreed it was the best thing even though he wasn’t at the point of needing it yet.  Steve finally gets it on the third try. James eyes the bruises on his arms with concern.

“What is it?”

He presses his lips together and shakes his head.

  
  
  


It’s the middle of the night when a touch wakes him from the twilight of almost-sleep.  It’s James, of course.

“Can I...”

Steve scoots over.  It’s a bad idea, but he can’t stop himself.  James slides under the blankets and is careful to avoid his ribs this time, though it’s difficult on the narrow mattress.  After a minute, he speaks.

“This is going to work, and I’m coming back.  You know that, right?”

Steve swallows.  Is he that obvious?

“Maybe you shouldn’t.  You could make the crossing.  You’d be safe from them in England.”  He would, wouldn’t he? He’s selfish, wanting James to stay after what he’s gone through.  He feels a little sick for a moment, wondering if the equivalent of James staying in a place occupied by Nazis is if Steve had been forced to live in the same building as Alexander, see him whole and smirking day after day...

“Don’t be an idiot,”  James says blithely.

The casual dismissiveness puts Steve at ease and a faint smile pulls at his lips.  “But I’m so good at it.”

James breathes a soft laugh into his shoulder blade.  This time he knows he’s joking. “I am coming back, though.”

“I’m glad,” Steve admits in a whisper.

James makes no move to leave.  In fact, he burrows in a little closer, their bodies touching in mostly-innocuous places.  It took Steve a while to understand that a vow of celibacy and a lack of intimacy were not necessarily the same thing; this kind of touch, this closeness, isn’t forbidden.  But he can never seem to settle just for this. In his bones, he wants, and the ache will not go down. It’s maddening.

“The church says it’s wrong for two men to lay together,” he says into the darkness.

  
  
  


There it is.

James shifts, considering the words.  He knows what Étienne is getting at, but the other man has gone tense, every muscle coiled.  Does he not want him here? He made sure to ask, and Étienne doesn’t usually give in for the sake of avoiding confrontation unless lives are on the line.  He doesn’t think he’s overstepped.

No.  The priest has been increasingly strained the last few days, and James thought it was probably just nerves coupled with the unsavory prospect of having to stay behind with nothing but his prayers to influence the outcome.  But it’s clear now that there’s something more at play.

“Even just in a bed like this?” he probes, unsure where this will go.

“No, I mean…”

“I know what you mean.”  

He waits.  Étienne started this; James doesn’t know how to help him get to where he wants to go.

He takes a breath.  “Were you always…”

“Different?” he supplies, when the words die.  It’s the kindest way to say it. Those other words are cruel, and he’s never thought it made any difference in the goodness or merit of a person.  He knows he’s in the minority, though, and that he’s gotten used to the loose sexual rules among his own kind. Regular people aren’t so open-minded.  “Yes. Though I never acted on it until after the change.” There’s a beat of silence before he asks, “What about you?”

“Yes,” Étienne says.  “I think so.” His voice is small and sad.  “I thought joining the clergy...devoting my life to God...might…”

“Change who you are?” James challenges.

Étienne moves restlessly, like the words are ants on his skin.  “At least make me understand why.”

“Why what?”

“Why God would make anyone this way, if it’s a sin.”

James shakes his head.  “From what I can tell, your God seems to think any kind of pleasure is a sin.”

“James--” he starts, disapproval evident in his voice, but the argument’s been opened and he isn’t going to back down.

“Come on, Étienne.  You have to admit it seems kind of cruel to have this capacity for love and pleasure, and then be told it’s wrong.”

“Just because something feels good doesn’t mean you should do it.”

“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, either,” James shrugs.

“People get lost in pleasure.  They forget what’s important. Kindness.  Humbleness. Service to others.”

“And yet here you are.  You’ve lain with a man, chased pleasure, and you haven’t forgotten anything.”

Étienne is very, very still, like he’s petrified of the truth being out in the air.  James just assumed, up until now, that because they were attracted to one another, it was obvious that his partners before the priesthood had been male.  Maybe a mix of male and female; James likes variety, himself. But perhaps Étienne thinks it was some sort of secret. He’s made it real now, manifested it into the universe with careless words.

“Believe me, I’ve been punished for it,” Étienne says in a haunted, quavery voice.  

James can’t stomach it; he sits up, agitated, horrified that he blames his abuse on  _ himself _ .

“Whatever happened,” he says, trembling with conviction, “whatever was done to you, it  _ wasn’t  _ because of that.”

Étienne can’t meet his eyes.  “It was  _ directly _ because of that.”

“So--so you’re saying--what they did to me, the Nazis, Hydra-- by the rules of your God, I deserved that?  Because--because--” he can’t get anything more out. It’s  _ ludicrous _ .  It makes him so angry he can barely think.

Étienne blanches, his expression equally horrified.  “No! Oh, James,  _ no.  _  Never.  No one deserves to be treated like that.”

“But you think  _ you _ deserved it.”  He’s towering over Étienne now, too close and too wound up.  “Remind me, which one of us is the murderer?”

He didn’t think it was possible, but Étienne grows paler still, and it’s too reminiscent of a corpse.  He looks up helplessly; his eyes are glassy with tears. Oh, fuck, he needs to stand down. He needs to be gentle about this.  Étienne was trying to say  _ something _ , however convoluted, trying to talk through a sensitive subject, and here he is with the sledgehammer.

James wills himself to be calm.  He sits back down and drops his shoulders.  He doesn’t say anything as Étienne struggles to will away his tears and make sense of it all.  He can see the battle on his face, hear it in his pitched breath and the faint vibration of his heartbeat.  The poor thing even  _ smells _ distressed.  He would never have kissed him if he knew it would cause such anguish.

_ Yes, you would have. _

Eventually, James reaches for his hand, and there’s no flinch, thank goodness.

“You’re the kindest person I know,” James enunciates, “but you never save any of it for yourself.”  Étienne is silent, but he knows that there’s a voice in his mind telling him lies about his worth. He’s been there.  Convincing him of his faultlessness is much more than one night’s work. James is willing to put in the time.

He traces Étienne’s hand with his, pressing warmth into the long fingers.

“Your...your God values love, doesn’t he?”

Étienne nods.  

“And your commandment, it says love thy neighbor, right?  Not love thy neighbor unless he’s different.”

Étienne bites his lip and nods again.

“I’ve been around a long time, Étienne.”  James sighs. There’s so much he wants to say, but there’s no way he can adequately express the whole of what he’s learned over the centuries.  He settles for gesturing back and forth between them. “These are just  _ bodies _ .  Love comes from here,” he says, tapping his temple.  “The packaging doesn’t matter. We’re the ones who make something of it, who pretend like there’s a wrong way to do it.”  He meets those blue eyes, so earnest and emotive, the most naked part of him _. _  His chest is tight.  “Love is rarely wrong.”

The priest exhales, shaky and measured.  And then he lifts his fingers to his lips, pressing a little kiss there before crossing the space between their bodies to graze James’s mouth.  He feels it like it’s a real kiss. He wants to suck on his fingers.

“You should...go,” Étienne whispers, eyes dark, pupils wide.

He understands.  If he stays in this bed, they’re going to break his vow.  He must know that eventually he’ll give in, or James won’t be strong enough to deny himself.  He doesn’t know how he’s strong enough  _ now _ .

He kisses Étienne’s fingertips, and then he gets up.

  
  


In the morning, it’s like the conversation never happened.  But James also senses that something’s given way inside Étienne.  He doesn’t know what it is, or what it means, but the tension of the last few days is gone.

He’s still worried, of course, but he’s pretending not to be for the sake of the people who are leaving the relative safety of his basement tonight.  It’s a convincing show of faith and serenity. It’s what they need.

Clément is...well, James likes him right away, immensely.  It’s clear that he’s been involved in the Resistance since day one.  In fact, he was meant to provide transport to these very people before, in the summer, but the Germans sent all the eligible men in his region to work in Alsace.  He’s only recently been sent back.

“They figured out that I can’t hear very well,” he says, shrugging.  “Apparently that’s a liability? I told them two years in a trench firing mortars will do that.”

He doesn’t look old enough to be a veteran of a war that ended twenty-three years ago.  Then again, James isn’t good with age anymore; his kind don’t change. In any case, Clément gets by with lip-reading, and he’s good at it; neither James nor Étienne had initially realized he was doing it.  But now they that know, it’s obvious, and they make sure to tap him on the shoulder if he’s not looking and something needs to be said.

The rest of it happens so fast.  It seems like they’re ready to go in an instant.  Under cover of darkness the six people Étienne had been hiding are loaded into the cleverly configured back of Clément’s truck.  It’s meant for transport of chickens; with one row of cages removed and a trick wall, it’s just big enough to fit them. It won’t be a comfortable ride, but it is a ride toward freedom.

Clément, Laure, and the children sit up front.  It had been surprisingly easy to get the Kommandant to approve the children’s relocation; Clément and Laure claimed they were needed to help him with the farm, and anything that produced more food for the Nazis to pilfer was greeted with enthusiasm.  Never mind that it was nearly December and everything he’d planted died or rotted in the field when he was conscripted to Alsace to build their war machines.

“Bucky,” Étienne says, when they’re all ready to go.  That’s the name the Resistance knows him by, so it’s the one Étienne uses in front of them.  It’s... _ he’s _ really growing on him, this Bucky, this heroic person who fights back against the Nazis.

He steps back into the warmth of the church.  Étienne’s hand closes around the front of his shirt and tugs him out of view of the truck.  He forgets how strong this one is, sometimes, but that thought is lost the moment the priest leans forward and kisses him.

It’s quick but sweet, a fervent, rebellious press of lips that’s so him that James wonders why he didn’t see it coming.  For a moment he can only blink. Étienne looks determined and scared to death in equal turns, but he never breaks James’s stare.

James smiles, unable to help himself. There’s nothing that needs to be said; he already told him in so many words that he loves him.  The rest is just redundant.

Étienne swallows and looks at his hand as if he has to will it to release.  Then he steps back and nods. No  _ good luck _ or  _ be careful.   _ Just absolute trust that James will do everything he promised, while looking out for himself and the others.  It’s been a long time since anyone trusted him that deeply, and it’s heady. As heady as the kiss.

He lets the feeling fill his chest, and he goes. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James's past comes knocking.

The quiet feels alive.

Steve paces.  It’s been 48 hours since they left.  He’s managing a little sleep, but he never realized just how much of his day revolved around caring for his guests and spending time with James.  He has absolutely nothing to do until Sunday.

He’s read, he’s drawn, he’s cleaned.  He’s prayed. Done the rosary. Written three sermons.  Started letters to Father Bruce and Sam that will never be mailed.  Though he did send his original letter with Alphonse, with instructions to post it once they made it to England.  There’s a good chance it will be intercepted and censored, and by then maybe nothing will be left for Bruce to read.  Still, at least he’ll know Steve is alive.

The only other thing to do is think, and he is sick to death of that.  It’s all he’s done for what feels like a week now. He’s spun in endless circles, reeling from book to book, gospel to gospel, and so many stops in between.  None of it is even half as simple as what James said to him in the dark that night.

_ It says love thy neighbor.  Not love thy neighbor unless he’s different. _

Specifically, it says to love your neighbor as yourself, and to hold that to the same importance as one’s belief and love for God.  It’s a cornerstone of the entire religion, and that part of the book has no stipulations. Would’ve been a hell of a lot more on those tablets Moses brought down if there were. 

It’s incredible how an outside perspective - someone not so entrenched in the dogma - can make everything clear.  And how blind acceptance can muddy it all up. Father Bruce had always emphasized finding one’s own meaning in the teachings of God and Christ, and Steve never realized how quietly tolerant, brave, and  _ subversive  _ that was until he got to the seminary.  Nothing was open to interpretation there.  It meant what the church said it meant. And that meant being queer was wrong.

Steve had needed many things back then, and a foothold to escape the past was one of them. No matter if it was a foothold of denial and self-loathing.  He could sublimate everything he was for God, couldn’t he? He could be what they required if it gave him a chance to help people.

Now James has opened a chasm in his mind.  It’s the impossibility of existing as he is -  as  _ God made him - _ and still being able to help people.  Why should the two be mutually exclusive?  It’s sort of mind-blowing in its simplicity.  What’s not simple is whether or not that makes him a heretic.

It feels a little bit like he’s playing a game of What Will Get Me To Hell Faster.  But hasn’t he been doing that all his life?

“Why stop now?” he murmurs.  Steve sighs and rubs his hands over his face.

James was right about something else, too; Steve has never been good at loving himself.  Father Bruce told him on several occasions that he needed to be kinder to himself, give himself the leeway he gave to others.  He’s not sure if he knows how.

It feels strange, but as he changes into his nightclothes, he stops and looks at himself.   Really  _ sees _ his body.  It’s so different than it used to be.  The three square meals a day, sleep, and medicine he got at the seminary seemed to have given his body permission to grow at last.

He breathes, and tries to find something good.  This body is…

Strong.  Yes. He has strength in his muscles now, enough to do whatever needs to be done.  He’s not all spindly knees and elbows, nor skipping heart and wheezing lungs. If he gets in a fight, he’ll win, or at least make it challenging for the other guy.  If he runs, he might actually get away.

And...well, James seems to find this body attractive.  Steve hasn’t allowed himself to think about his appearance, even though objectively, he knows he looks better than he did once upon a time.  He can admit that he doesn’t want to look in the mirror at something that’s sexualized. For too long, his value was in his skin.

_ These are just bodies. _

He frowns.  Maybe James likes something else about him, too.  Maybe there’s a way to be together without...

Steve pulls his clothes on, shivering.  It’s cold and it seems wasteful to heat the whole place now that it’s just him.  Standing here naked is foolish. So is trying to pretend that he doesn’t want those things anymore.

When he joined the priesthood he was happy to take the vow.  He couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be touched again; it felt safe to renounce it all.  No one would try. It gave him a kind of invisibility, a painless, metaphorical castration.

The first year or two, he would occasionally wake up with an erection, but that was it.  There were no dreams, no lustful thoughts; just physiology. He ignored it, his body settled, and he focused on his studies.

He realizes now that really, he was just  _ sick _ .  He was recovering from years on the street with poor nutrition, frequent injury, inconsistent shelter, and a shoddy mental state.   Once he turned the corner, his body woke up, and so did his mind.

The shame was decimating.   He almost left the seminary over it, convinced he wasn’t worthy.  It’s still close to the surface.

_ Even after that, you want it.  What is wrong with you?  _

It’s so easy to fall into a cascade, even now.

_ Once a whore, always a whore.   _

_ Why do you pretend you’re meant to be anything else?   _

_ Just go back to the streets. _

Father Bruce convinced him to stay.   _ A vow doesn’t mean anything if it’s easy to keep,  _ he said _.  If it was easy, we wouldn’t need to do it at all.   _ Steve doesn’t know why everyone seems capable of such insights except him.

And here he is again, thinking in the same old circles.  He needs to busy his hands. There’s a box of old, broken rosaries in Père Govinden’s room, and now seems like a great time to restring them.  Steve settles himself at the desk and stares at the mess of beads and pendants before digging in.

Thing is, he’s not sure he can partake in anything without feeling not only tremendous guilt (he made a promise to  _ God _ ), but also that same overwhelming shame and self-loathing.  The two are...mostly separate. There had always been an eddy of internalized shame from growing up in the church.  But most of it…

Most of it comes from Alexander.

His hands tremble, and he drops a bead.

Normally he wouldn’t touch these thoughts with a ten foot pole.  The intervening years have made him an expert in repression. But the more he thinks about it, the more that feels like Alexander still exerting control over him and his life.  He wants to get the devil off his back. He wants...he wants to  _ like himself _ .  

Of course, just like a vow, no fight with the devil is easy.

But he’s done enough tonight.  He’s found something good about himself, and he’s accepted that his libido exists without the urge to self-punish.  This is progress enough.

He focuses on the rosary beads, mixing them all together into something new - wood mingling with glass and crystal, opal and quartz and hematite, multiple chains, macrame like his mother used to do for a little extra money.  It’s frivolous, and the church would frown on it, this rosary fit for a queen, he’s sure, but it feels good to create. 

He’s lost in it, his mind quiet, until he hears the creak of a door.   The front door. Which he locked before retiring to his room.

He sets his creation down, trying to determine whether he’d imagined it.  The only one with a key is James. It’s much too soon for him to be back. They’re not even due to depart for another five days!  James wouldn’t leave them; he swore he would see them off. If he’s back…

Steve’s heart pounds painfully in his chest.  Not that. Please not that. He can’t bear the thought that he sent them off to death.

He rises from his chair half-panicked and forces himself to put one foot in front of the other.  The church is cold and utterly silent, dark but for the one large candle still burning near the altar.   _ Le feu  _ _ sacré _ _. _

“James?” he whispers.

There’s no response.  The quiet still feels like a thing alive, but now there’s an edge of menace assaulting his senses.  For the first time it occurs to him that it could be someone else, and that they might not be friendly.  He should have taken the knife that resides in the trick drawer. But  _ how _ , how could someone get in?

_ Locks can be picked.  You’ve done it. _

He’s motionless in the aisle, hardly daring to breathe.  He doesn’t hear anything...but he feels it. A presence. Steve’s heart sinks again.

He’s being  _ hunted _ .

“James,” a low voice drawls, right next to his ear, “is that what he goes by now?” 

Steve jumps out of his skin, whirling, fists up.  All he can see is the shape of a man. A man with red eyes.

The hard, instinctual jolt of fight or flight catapults his muscles into action.  He lunges for the altar. The candle, if he can get to the candle--

But suddenly his feet aren’t under him anymore, and the floor rushes up and his ribs  _ scream. _  It’s a precious second lost in the grip of pain.  Steve scrambles, trying to make his limbs obey, but he’s already there. Vampire, sangsue, strigoi, whatever he is.  He’s contemplating the candle with a wicked smirk on his face.

“Ah, the old holy fire.  Do you think this will save you?” he asks.  He laughs, and then he leans over, pursing his lips into a perfect O, and blows out the candle.  The flame fights - bends and gutters for a second - but it goes out.

The darkness is complete.  So is Steve’s fear, for a moment. That was it, that was all he had.  There’s no other weapon, no other option. He’s going to die.

An old, spiteful, rage-filled voice flares to life in his head.

_ Like hell I will! _

          He’ll be  _ damned _ if this is the end of the line. He's not done yet.  He's only just begun to do good. 

          The air shifts; Steve’s muscles tense in an automatic remembrance of this moment, the heavy second before physical confrontation.  It used to excite him, poor misguided soul that he was. Now he just wants to make it out alive.

The creature must be used to easy prey, because he's not immediately prepared for Steve to fight.  And he  _ fights _ , powered by the visceral need to see another day and the bile that's never truly left him.  He throws elbows, he bites, he thrashes and screams. Some of it lands, and the vampire growls.

Steve lets go and his mind whites out.  Every ounce of anger, every smothered retort, every resentment he’s harbored toward the Nazis and anyone else in his entire life floods him.  He could break necks like this, and if he was fighting a regular person maybe he would have. But this is a vampire. 

He moves in a blur and slams Steve’s wrists to the ground.  He strains against the hold, mind firing wildly at echoed memories of restraint, but nothing he does can budge him.  He’s pinned. He can only lay there, chest heaving, teeth bared.

The vampire closes his eyes and inhales, a look of rapture on his face. 

“So fucking good,” he murmurs, tongue playing along the edge of an elongated canine.  “He always did find the sweetest ones.”

He isn’t going to think about it.  He won’t let himself imagine James doing this to people, innocent people, before the war.  He isn’t like that anymore.

“He won’t mind if I have a little snack before he gets back, will he?”

_ No no nonono. _

“I fucking mind!” Steve snarls, renewing his struggle.  It’s useless. The  _ strength  _ in those hands, that body - James is always so gentle, and it never occurred to him that he had to hold back.

The vampire throws his head back and laughs.  “Oh, you are a delight. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.  You’re much too good for that.” Then his gaze changes ever so subtly in a way that makes Steve’s guts clench.  Until now his look was purely that of an apex predator scenting blood. It’s still predatory, but in a different way.  A way Steve knows.

One of those wicked claws that James only has on his right hand comes up and slices clean through his shirt.  He’s  _ careful _ about it; it doesn’t leave a mark on his skin.  He’s done this before. Anger starts to turn to panic inside Steve,  _ not this, not this again-- _

“I can make it good for you, sweetheart.  You just have to relax.” His voice is like poured honey, all smooth and sweet and oozing.

Steve wrenches his left hand free and swings as hard as he can.  He at least has the satisfaction of knowing it hurt before he’s slammed back to the ground, big meaty hands pinning his neck and shoulder wide open.  His mind just... _ shudders _ , jumps back to somewhere else, and he’s paralyzed.

_ This is what you are, just a plaything that suffers so beautifully... _

But the Lord is merciful, because when the vampire strikes, the pain is so bad that he blacks out in seconds, and there are no hateful voices in the darkness.

  
  
  
  


It’s... _ easy _ .  It shouldn’t be, but it is.

It’s an hour to Clément’s farm.  No one stops them. It’s so dark in the countryside that they all stumble on the walk up, except for Clément.  There’s a stillness about him, a surety that James finds both comforting and intriguing. Not the same as Étienne’s company, but more than acceptable.

There are only two beds.  Laure and the children take one; Clément insists Beatrix and Alphonse take his. There’s one couch, two chairs, and several bedrolls to choose from after that.  He’s definitely done this before.

“How many?” James asks.

“Before they sent me off to work? I don’t know, ninety?  A hundred?” he shrugs. He’s so casual about it. He shakes his head and leans over the porch rail.  “Not enough. And the routes aren’t getting easier.”

James swallows, feeling small and humbled.  “This is the first time, for me.”

Clément smiles and gives him a brief squeeze on the shoulder.  The right one, thank goodness. Only Étienne has seen what’s attached to him on the other side.  “You want to take watch, or should I?”

“I’ve got it.”  He doesn’t need much sleep, and though he doesn’t doubt Clément’s ability to keep them safe, James has all his senses about him and then some.

_ Well, except the kind of sense that keeps you from falling for a human. You know how this ends, Iacob. _

“Not if I’m Bucky,” he mumbles to himself.  

Clément doesn’t hear.  He says, “You sure?”

James nods and turns so the other man can see him.  “Get some sleep.”

  
  


The next few days are an odd mixture of rest and preparation.  Against their better judgment the Champsecret Six bask in the unseasonably warm sun that Saturday.  Clément reasons that the house is almost 200 meters set back from the road, and there’s nothing behind it but forest.  Unless the Nazis come from the woods, they’re safe. 

James scours the forest at dawn.  No sign of human disturbance. He’s tense when they first go outside, but it dissolves as the day warms.  It’s something, watching people who haven’t see the sun in a year with their faces tilted up, drinking in the daylight.  

To the right of the house, the fields sprawl into the distance.  They’re a mess. Clément gets a faintly murderous look on his face whenever he glances that way.  He’s out there now, in part so he can signal if anyone is approaching, but also attempting to see if any of the wildly overgrown squashes are still good enough to eat.

His mind drifts to Étienne.  He imagines he must be going a little stir-crazy.  He’s been so focused on caring for these people for so long, and now they’re gone.  James frowns as a thought occurs to him. He’s been good with not hurting himself since that night James found him, stripes across his back, but what if, when he’s alone…

He knows what the sin was, now.  

James can only hope the message got through.  He’s just how he’s meant to be, he deserves to be loved and love in return, and there’s nothing wrong with it.  Étienne can do his God’s work without shame. It isn’t one or the other.

Of course, James has had years upon years to learn all that, and was never so conflicted about it in the first place. It’s unlikely that one conversation, one  _ kiss _ , will change his mind.  Maybe when James gets back, he will have rededicated himself to the vow and the belief that their attraction is wrong.  That one kiss could be all James ever gets.

_ And you’ll have to be okay with that. _

Yes.  It isn’t Étienne’s body he misses right now; he’s never known it, except in his dreams.  It’s his company, his unshakeable determination, his kindness, and the thread of something irreverent that ties him all together.

“You know,” Clément says, startling him out of his thoughts, “the point of being on watch is to watch.”  He’s smiling; it’s a scolding without bite.

“I’m sorry,” James says, moving to help him with the three large pumpkins he’s balancing in his arms in what appears to be an act of sorcery.

“It’s all right.  Hope you like pumpkin soup.”

  
  


James can’t work up the nerve to ask Clément if there had ever been a woman of the house, or children of his own.  He thinks he knows the answer. The house feels like it had a mistress once. The curtains are lace, and there’s a room full of scraps and thread and a half-finished dress.

“It was the Spanish flu,” Laure says that night, following his eyes to the empty spaces.  Clément’s out on the porch on watch. “He was away fighting. As if the trenches didn’t take enough from him.”  Her lips twist. “From all of us.”

He never went near the heart of the war.  But those who did spoke of its pointless brutality, the scent of blood everywhere, the resignation and even  _ welcome _ in the eyes of some of the men. And the survivors, the ones who made it home to have families, now had to watch their sons and daughters live it all over again.

He knows there’s no going back now, to thinking he’s different or above or apart.  He’s ashamed he ever indulged in that. Then again, he hadn’t started off with the best crowd.  Thank heavens he’d gotten away from Brock. 

“You should stay,” James says into the silence.  “It’s safer here.”

“Nothing is safe with them in our country,” she replies.  She must know from his accent that he’s not actually French, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the Resistance.  But her point is indisputable.

Still, it nags at him.  He hated having to leave Natalia.  There was no choice, then. He was too dangerous, groping blindly in a new world of uncontrolled bloodlust, and he’d be damned if his daughter got caught up in that.  But Laure can choose to be here. She can choose to hold her children close. Although when all is said and done, that may not spare any of them. The universe is cruel like that.

He bites his tongue.  It isn’t his place. Let Clément reason with her, or Étienne.  

_ Or let her live her life. _

  
  


They leave on Tuesday morning, the truck laden down with pumpkins and squashes.  James is learning that one of the fastest ways to an occupying army’s heart is food.  Eyes go wide at checkpoints, gazes drifting away in fantasies about sweet roasted vegetables that definitely have no place in a soldier’s rations.  Clément doesn’t disappoint; he leaves a pumpkin or two at each checkpoint, smiling and joking like he doesn’t want to punt all of them off the nearest bridge.  It will be smooth sailing on the way home, too.

They stay the night in Pierre’s garage, blackout curtains over the windows and a small fire burning.  It’s the first of what will be many cold nights, he thinks. James takes watch.

Pierre drifts out at some point, a smiling ghost.  It’s very quiet, the chilled air so clear it cuts facets into the stars.  It’s been a long time, it’s true, but he’s still not tired of the sky. 

“How are things going?” James asks softly.

“Calm before the storm, I think,” he murmurs.  “Gamora’s hearing rumbles.”

“What kind of rumbles?”

“Crackdowns.  And expansion of the occupation.”

James exhales, breath puffing in front of him.

“And you and Gamora?”

Pierre just smiles at his feet, and that tells James everything he needs to know.

  
  


Wednesday dawns still and cold. By midday it’s warmed a little.  James is so nervous he can’t sit down. If he could shift into his wolf form and run it off, he would, but it’s out of the question.

They can’t leave too early.  They need the excuse for Clément to spend the night in Carteret, which means they have to get there just before curfew.  There being a market stall owned by someone named Yondu, in the guise of setting up to sell his squashes. It isn’t far from the docks.  From there, they have to wait for darkness and hope it’s kind to them as they cross to the wharf.

Clément is damnably calm.  Nothing seems to faze him. He and Pierre hand out knives, some of which have German names on them. It’s then that he realizes they’re both pickpockets.  He shakes his head and chuckles, wondering if any Nazi in their path had ever been stabbed with his own knife.

Pierre holds a knife out to him, and James takes it.  It’s easier than explaining that he doesn’t need it.

“You want it back?” James asks, knowing how this kind of goodbye goes.

“You’re damn right I do.”

He twirls it around his fingers.  Living forever means time spent on stupid hobbies, handiwork with knives being one of them.  Pierre’s eyebrow goes up, and James smirks, needing the humor to calm his nerves.

“I’ll do my best.”

  
  
  


“Stop. Breathe. It’s going to be fine.”

How is Clément so fucking calm?

There’s some cloud cover, and the moon is waning.  The only sound is the whoosh of the ocean. The air tastes of it.  Seaweed, brine - it reminds him of Constanta. He follows Clément’s breathing and thinks of home.

Certainty falls over him like a shroud. They’re going to do this.  They’re going to cross to the wharf, meet tiny, twitchy Roquette and huge silent Gracine, and send these people to safety.

He’s not helpless in it, either.  If he doesn’t overdo it, he should be able to help their case and still have enough energy to fight, if it comes down to that.

“Give me two minutes.”

Clément nods and squeezes his shoulder.

James breathes.  This isn’t something he does frequently.  It’s been long enough to feel tentative and unfamiliar, but the air listens anyway.

Brock’s voice echoes in his head.   _ Strigoi aren’t only a curse of blood _ .   _ We are pestilence.  We choke the sun from the sky. _

He didn’t get much from Brock’s dramatics, but he got this.  

James closes his eyes and reaches, a fisherman pulling in a net made of clouds.  The mist gathers.

Clément is the only one who notices. 

  
  
  


Roquette and Gracine are exactly as he remembers them.  But quiet this time, so quiet, faces serious and strained, eyes darting about.  They’re so fucking brave it hurts him a little bit. To think he was  _ running _ …

Shame hits him again.  It doesn’t get far, though.  Alphonse squeezes his elbow as he goes by, the last of the Champsecret Six to board the boat.  He disappears below deck and Gracine wastes no time closing up and getting ready to cast off. It feels too fast, lacking ceremony, but they already said their goodbyes.

Roquette gives him a crooked salute and scurries onto the ship.  In another minute they’re moving, pulling away from the wall. He can hear Roquette’s impatient whisper of, “Go,  _ go!”  _ as he folds the mist in behind them. 

They’re gone so fast he almost doesn’t believe they were ever there.  That’s just as well, because a second later a two-man patrol turns down the wharf.  With a shared glance, he and Clément melt into the shadows. There’s a gun in one of Clément’s hands and a knife in the other.  He’s so  _ still _ .

The two men aren’t looking for anything in particular. They’re just making their rounds. They walk past James and Clément and stop at the end of the wharf,  _ right _ where the boat had been parked minutes before.  James holds his breath as they share a cigarette, speaking just low enough that James can’t make out what they’re saying.  If he can’t hear it, there’s no way Clément can. Chances are it’s nothing of consequence.

When they’re done they move on, bootsoles heavy on the pavement.  James and Clément wait for silence. Then James nods at him, and they slip back to the truck.  He’s shaking with adrenaline. They did it.  _ They did it. _  A tremendous smile splits his face...and that’s when he realizes that Clément isn’t smiling, and the tip of his knife is against James’s chest.

“You’re one of them,” he says.  Still so calm.

“Are you out of your mind?” James breathes.  How could he think that, where --

“I don’t mean a Nazi.  You’re another kind of plague.”

Oh, fuck.   _ Two years in the trenches. _  Clément has seen his kind at work, probably lost friends to them, likely fought for his own life more than once.  He shouldn’t have summoned the mist. He forgot his eyes would change. But that’s too little, too late, and there’s no use denying it now. 

“Then you know your knife won’t do anything to me.”

He nods.  “No. Just fire.”  His eyes narrow slightly. “Or beheading.”

James doesn’t say anything.  Beheading would be a laborious process with that tiny knife, and if Clément was going to do anything, he would have done it already.  He meets his eyes and just stares, watching the other man think.

Clément lowers the knife a fraction.

“Why are you here?”

James removes his left glove and shrugs out of his jacket sleeve.  The arm gleams in the weak moonlight.

“They captured me. Cut off my arm, tortured me, turned me into a weapon.  They used me to kill their enemies.” James swallows. “I didn’t want to.”

Clément nods.

“When I escaped, I swore I would kill as many of them as possible.  But I also wanted to get far, far away from them. I was going to sail to America.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”  He pulls his sleeve back on, and the glove.  “I met Étienne. I saw what he was doing - what you’re all doing - and I realized that I had to fight back.  I had to help. Or else they’ll just keep hurting people the way they hurt me, or worse, until there’s no one left to stop them.”

Clément exhales, and for a moment, age sits heavy on his face. He folds his knife.

“The priest.  He knows what you are?”

James nods.

“He’s okay with you just...eating people?”

He lets out a dark little chuckle.  “Not at all.”

“Then how are you feeding?  I’m all for you eating Nazis, but them always turning up dead is going to draw too much attention.”

He already liked Clément before this conversation, but this just makes James like him more.  “We, uh, have an arrangement.”

“An...arrangement,” he repeats.  He blinks, and it dawns on him. “He feeds you.”

It’s dark enough to hide James’s blush, or at least he hopes it is.  “Yes.”

“Jesus,” Clément says.  And then he laughs, and James has to laugh, too.  It’s absurd. They shouldn’t make so much noise, but it’s  _ funny. _

They settle down after a minute.  James is  _ tired _ .  But they’ve still got to maintain the charade and sell pumpkins in the morning.  This time tomorrow, they’ll be back in Champsecret and he’ll get to see Étienne smiling.  He’ll cry, probably. They’ve all needed a win.

“This war is so fucked,” Clément says, around one last chuckle.  And then he turns over and falls asleep before James can even respond.  

  
  
  


He doesn’t know much of anything until Saturday.

He wakes up before that, of course.  Everything hurts and he feels  _ terrible,  _ truly terrible, like there isn’t a single ounce of energy in his body.  He’s tethered to the radiator. Naked.

His mind can’t cope.  He goes blank the way he always did at Alexander’s.  Steve sleeps, lulled by the warmth.

But Saturday.

He wakes with hands on him. A scream bottles in his throat.

“Your friends are knocking, and they’re very persistent,” the vampire sneers.  “What do they want?”

It takes Steve a long time.

“Lose your mind already, sweetheart?”

_ Fuck you. _

“They’re not my friends,” he rasps.

Clothing is dropped in a pile in front of him.  “Get dressed and make them go away.”

Steve just stares.  He’s as good as dead.  Let the Nazis break down the door.

The vampire’s scarlet eyes narrow.  “Make them go away, or  _ I’ll _ make them go away,” he threatens, lips drawing back from his teeth in a smile that says he’d love nothing more.

Steve gets dressed.

  
  


He must look bad. The Nazi at the door actually looks a little concerned.  He tells the man that he’s ill and hasn’t been able to write anything.

“Then there will be no service tomorrow.”

“No,” Steve implores, realizing that when this man leaves, he’s alone again.  “No, I can do it. I’ll do it. If you could just wait...”

“Père,” the soldier says, and Steve recognizes him.  He’s the one who whispered to the officer and got him to stop, when they were beating him in the cellar.  “You are not well. Please, take the time to rest.”

“God does not rest.”  He stands up as tall as he can.  His ribs still smart.

“He rested on the seventh day.” The soldier looks the faintest bit amused.

“I won’t be creating the universe,” Steve returns.  “Please.”

“All right,” he relents after a moment.  “I’ll come in the morning to read it.”

  
  


It’s too short a reprieve.  In minutes he’s back in the chamber staring down a monster.

“Strip.”

Steve lifts his chin.  “No.”

“Do you think it’s a choice?”

He knows he’ll end up naked.  It isn’t about the clothes. His only choice is whether or not to cooperate.

He cooperated with Alexander, and that was a mistake.  All of it was a mistake. From listening to Ross’s tip about a rich guy who liked the look of him, to agreeing to Alexander’s proposition, to being stupid enough to let himself be trapped.

_ I like to keep the same boy when I’m in town. You only serve me.  You won’t need anyone else, with the money I can offer.  _

Like a fool, he laid out his terms.  What a pretty illusion, thinking he had any power, any say in what happened to him, or that he could walk out after the deal had been struck.  He never left that penthouse. Not until two and a half months later, on the coldest night winter had to offer. Alexander’s way to passively murder him so he’d never talk.

He’d almost done the job for him, swaying on the Manhattan Bridge, tears frozen to his face.  But something made him walk on. 

The vampire’s wicked nails cut his clothes away.  They whisper to the floor. His skin writhes with goosebumps.

_ Walk on. Walk on. _

But he’s already at the church.  Where does he go now?

  
  
  


The vampire doesn’t do more than grope him.  It’s an assertion of dominance.  _ You’re mine. _  He feels leprous with his touch.

Steve curls up next to the radiator and tries to stay awake.  He has to write a sermon. The three he wrote earlier in the week are full of what he wants to say, not what he has to say.  They’re no good. So he has to draft a new one, and he has no pen or paper. Asking the creature is out of the question. He’ll have to write it in his head and recite the damn thing in the morning.

Oh, God, he tries, but his mind jumps and drifts, and he’s so tired…

  
  
  


He wakes drenched in cold sweat, barely able to breathe, trembling so hard he rattles the radiator.  He scared Father Bruce to death once, this same dream. No, memory. One he’d burn out if he could.

“Dreaming about me?” the vampire says from the bed, supremely unmoved.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”  There’s no bite to it. He can barely speak.  In fact, he feels like he might vomit.

His captor tilts his head.  “What haunts a priest?”

Steve tries to even out his breathing.  This was one of the few times he’d lied to Bruce.  Nobody needed to know about the night Alexander had passed him around to his friends.  By that time Alexander was predictable; he liked what he liked and Steve knew what to expect.  But his friends…

He retches, but it’s just dry heaves.  There’s nothing in his belly. 

  
  
  


“You didn’t answer my question.”

He’s in some twilight state between sleeping and waking.  Hunger is a cold, dull knife low in his stomach.

"I don't owe you answers."

“You owe me your life.”

Steve snorts.  He knows that strigoi can bite without changing and drink without killing.  And that he tastes good. The vampire isn’t going to kill him. Not intentionally.

_ Right, he’ll just hold you prisoner, feed from you against your will, starve you, and possibly rape you.  That’s all. _

“Actually,” he drawls.  “I  _ own _ your life.  Once Iacob gets back, we’ll be leaving this place.  You’ll learn to do what I say.”

Steve turns toward the radiator.  He’s tired and hungry and scared enough to feel doubt creeping at the edges of his mind.  What if James…

_ No.  _

No.  

  
  


He recites a sermon about fear when the Nazi arrives, and then recites it again as closely as he can remember for Mass.  The faces in the thinning crowd are concerned. His hands shake during communion, but his voice doesn't waver.

He had hoped Oskar might be here, that maybe he could somehow communicate something.  But he isn't, and he won't put anyone else at risk. It's clear that this vampire won't think twice about murdering people.

At least three people swear they're going to bring him soup, and he doesn't dissuade them.  When today is over, an entire week alone and defenseless yawns ahead of him. His former guests aren't even due to sail until Wednesday, and the earliest James could possibly get back is Thursday or Friday.  That's if everything goes perfectly. When has it ever?

_ What if he doesn't come back? _

He swore he would, but what if something happens?  What if, standing on that shore, he changes his mind?

_ Then you escape or die trying. _

He leans against his desk, feeling dizzy and weak and worn out.  It’s gonna be a hell of an effort. He’s glad, though. He’s glad that the spitfire inside him never really went away, even if Alexander and, to a much lesser degree, the seminary, tried to stamp him out.  He won’t be a slave again. He’ll annoy the vampire to death if he has to.

He has nothing but time.  He’ll come up with a plan. And If James isn’t back by next Sunday....he’ll put it in motion and hope for the best.

  
  


The vampire, who doesn’t bother to tell him his name, seems to realize that Steve needs to be fed after two of his parishioners make good on the promise to bring him soup.  It’s amazing what a belly full of lentil soup can do. Steve feels somewhat alive for the first time in days.

The vampire doesn’t eat.  James eats every day, but this one seems sustained by his own malevolence.

“Why don’t you eat?” Steve asks Monday night.  He’s unashamed to be licking his bowl. It’s not enough, but it’s something, and he isn’t going to waste a drop.  “James does.”

He expects a sarcastic or threatening retort - these seem to be the other man’s only settings.  Instead, he just looks at Steve as if he’s a sweet little novelty and says, “The young ones like to hold on to their human mannerisms.”

_ There are strigoi much older than me _ , James had said.  This is one of them.  It’s not surprising, really; in the rare moments where he’s not scowling or smug, his eyes drift off to a place Steve can’t begin to imagine.  He seems...not  _ ancient _ , that isn’t the right word.  Just  _ beyond _ somehow, old and powerful and dark.

“How do you know James?” Steve asks, wondering how far he can get.

He smiles a slow Cheshire cat grin, teeth showing.  Dangerous.

“I made him.”

Steve sets down his bowl and doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the night.

  
  
  


On Wednesday he spends the entire night praying.  Out loud.

The prayers are for the people who should be boarding a boat in Carteret right now, and for the people helping them.  The out loud part is to annoy the hell out of the vampire. Not just on his behalf; this is the thing that stole James’s life.  It’s for him, too.

After three hours, he gags him.  

“Your God won’t save you,” he snarls.  “Your God isn’t real.”

Steve hums the entirety of the hymnal, long into the night, until the creature threatens to put out his eyes.

  
  
  


None of it helps him the next evening.  The vampire comes in, eyes blazing red, menace personified.  He stalks over, a hand flashing out to grab Steve by the hair.  Queasy adrenaline washes over him and blots out everything rational.  He kicks at his shins, his groin,  _ anything,  _ his scalp screaming, the vampire’s claws cutting him.  He refuses to make this easy.

But he has to freeze when the vampire growls, “Daddy’s hungry, and you’re going to hold still and feed him or you can say goodbye to that pretty lady from the second row. Her kid, too.  The chubby one, the boy. The kids taste the best.”

He’s talking about Matthieu’s wife and youngest son.

Steve holds still, trembling with rage. 

He doesn’t pass out this time, though.  He can’t move from his spot facedown on the floor, but he stays awake, glaring even as he feels like he’s dying. 

“It doesn’t have to hurt,” the vampire coos, licking his blood-sticky lips.  “I told you, I can make it good. Iacob won’t mind if you come for me, too.”

And that’s when the hinges of the front door squeal, and a familiar, tentative voice calls out,

“Étienne...?”

 


End file.
